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JULIET.
The lyf e so short, the craft so long to learn .
The assay so hard, so sharp the conquering."
Chauceb.
" I ask thee for a faithful love,
Through constant watching, wise."
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST.
publisl^rs in (Drbinarg to Jfcr gTajwfg i\i djujecn.
1883.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
" We Ken how the Tarn Lips "
* •
PAGE
I
CHAPTER II.
Hopes, Fulfilled and Unfulfilled
36
CHAPTER III.
With Merlin
74
CHAPTER IV
" Check ! "
107
CHAPTER V.
Mosaics
12
iv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
"Will You be My Wife?" . . . .157
CHAPTER VII.
Facts and Figures 192
CHAPTER VIII.
Evelyn, the Temptress 218
CHAPTER IX.
Nemesis 256
CHAPTER X.
"Fortune, Turn Thy Wheel" ... 276
JULIET.
CHAPTER I.
" WE KEN HOW THE TARN LIPS."
At the end of that summer, Murdock one
day announced that he should be going over
to Hipsley soon ; and Hipsley being the little
town where Molly was born, and whose
churchyard held her father's and mother's
graves, the thought at once flashed into her
mind that she should like to £0 with him.
But when she proposed that they should
drive over together, he scowled and swore
at her, and she had to give up the idea.
vo\. III.
2 JULIET.
Murdock certainly could not have taken her,
considering the nature of his business there.
Of the six hundred pounds left her by her
father, there still remained in the Hipsley
Bank something above one hundred, and
this he was now ^oino- to withdraw for his
own use, thus sending it in the same direc-
tion as the rest had gone. This step must
be taken at once if at all. Molly was on the
verge of twenty-one, and Mrs. Ormrod had
constantly assured him that when she
reached that age she should be advised to
look after her own affairs. This being on
the assumption that there were six hundred
pounds to look after, while there was only
one-sixth part of that amount, he shrewdly
thought there might as well be none. He
had made full use of his power over her for-
tune, and this full use had taken the form of
full abuse, for it had gradually found its way
to his pockets, and from thence to those of
his creditors. This was the more repie-
" WE KEN HO W THE TARN LIPSr 3
hensible, from the fact that there had been a
Will, and that in that Will he was simply a
trustee conjointly with his sister's husband,
while it was further stipulated that Molly
should live with the Ormrods. When An-
thony died, this Will was under his pillow,
Matthew having taken it at his bidding from
the great brass-bound desk in the parlour ;
and had one more hour of life been vouch-
safed him, it would have been placed in a
lawyer's hands. Another spasm came on
before this was accomplished, fatal uncon-
sciousness followed, Matthew snatched forth
the Will before leaving the room, and in-
formed the lawyer that it having been
destroyed, Anthony had wanted his services
in preparing another. This bore the stamp
of possibility, and left no room for anything
more damning than suspicion, and for sus-
picion Murdock did not care a jot. On the
contrary, he enjoyed it in a fashion peculiar
to himself, chuckling dryly over the know-
4 JULIET.
ledge that they could not prove its justice,
and determining that when he was dead this
power should be theirs. With this object in
view he did not destroy the Will, but further
enjoyed the situation by taking it in his
pocket on driving Molly home to Alderdale,
and hiding it in a little secret cupboard in
the wainscot of the kitchen. It was his
intention, if he died in his bed, to send
Molly down at the last moment to find the
cupboard and bring him the sealed envelope
it contained. Thus he should die with it
beside him, and the people around would
naturally take it to be his Will. On opening
it, they would find it was Anthony's, and
knowing that none of those carefully-stored
monies was forthcoming, no touch of the
irony of Fate would pass unrealized by
Molly and her many friends — a diabolical
plan destined to frustration.
He started for Hipsley early in the day,
going off before Molly was down, as though
" WE KEN HO W THE TARN LIPSr 5
he wished to avoid her. She heard the
clatter of his horse's hoofs in the yard, and
sprang out of bed to watch him out of sight
under the sycamores. It was a glorious
August morning, and the Moss was purple
with the full bloom of the ling. A fresh
breeze was blowing, and the broad sunshine
was constantly eclipsed by the swoop of the
cloud-shadows over the hills. She opened
her window when she was dressed, and leant
out with her elbows on the sill and her face
towards the breeze. She knew it w r as an
exhilarating breeze, and was vexed because
<_> *
it rather depressed than exhilarated her. She
was curiously divided in her mind between
relief at Murdoch's absence for a whole day
and a presentiment of misfortune. All day
this presentiment deepened, although the
weather did not change and the sunset was
one of rare glory. She saw its glow on the
trees by the river as she was ironing in the
window, and when she had finished work,
6 JULIET.
she went out to a gate looking- westward, and
stood a lon^ - time watching the slow ebb and
flow of colour that linked the hills with the
sky, and was unutterably eloquent of the
" glories that shall be revealed ' in the
Hereafter.
Afterwards, darkness came on quickly,
and when she went in, it was too dusk in the
kitchen to see to do anything. Some months
ago she loved this twilight hour, and used to
sit with her head against Tamars knee,
staring dreamily into the fire, thinking of
Ormrod. Now she hated it. It grave her a
pang to find Tamar indulging in the tire-
light, and she ran and plunged the poker into
the peats, rousing a myriad flying sparks, and
sending a ruddy glow quivering along the
panels and dark old carven chests. Then
she trimmed the lamp, and went to the win-
dow to draw down the blind.
But instead of doing so, she pressed her
face against the glass, and looked out into
" WE KEN HO W THE TARN LIPS." 7
the gloom, seeing nothing, but thinking with
painful strained acuteness, until Tamar had
finished laying the table for Murdock's
supper, and coming up behind, placed her
hands firmly on her shoulders, and turned
her to the light. Tamar, however, saw so
white a face, that playfulness quickly gave
way to anxiety,
" What's the matter ? " she said. "Why,
lassie, you might have seen a bogie."
Molly laughed, but shivered.
" Don't talk of ghosts," she said. * It'll
frighten me to-night. It seems to me very
dree, it's so wonderfully still out of doors,
just a few stars twinkling, and a pale mist
stealing over the river like a winding-
cloth."
"Winding-cloth ! " cried Tamar. "What
do you ken of winding-cloths ? There's
swaddling-clothes to come first with such
as you. Hoots, hoots! that's a nice
fancy ! We'll go out to the front and
8 JULIET.
see it close, and listen if we'll hear Matthew
along the road; it's getting time he was
coming."
To Moll) r , the thought of going out into
that quiet gloom, that was certainly void of
living creatures, and yet seemed to her quick
fancy, peopled with whirling eddies of them,
careering to and fro betwixt her and the sky,
was almost intolerable. But Tamar was bent
on eoiner, and idancinof round into the dim
and eerie corners of the great kitchen. Molly
chose the horror in which she would at least
have companionship, and ran after her down
to the door. In a moment they had unbolted
it, and stepped out.
All was very still, and it was strange to
catch the muffled sound of the water under
the mists, stealthily settling above it. Tamar
went to the river's brink, and Molly followed
not daring to stand still, and appalled by the
large vagueness of the figure in advance of
her. Inst then, Tamar spoke, and her bolj.1
" WE KEN HO W THE TARN LIPS."
staccato infused some courage into her sink-
ing" heart.
" This is no cobweb, my certie," she said,
waving- her arms in the fog. " It's more
porridge nor steam, and I lay it'll be on the
tops too, after such heat as we've been hav-
ing. It's a deal nastier on the tops than here
— filling all the dubs and hollows ; and I wish
Matthew was safely over the moor."
Molly shuddered ; she had never heard the
word " dub " since Brunskill described his
father's death, and it brought that scene
vividly before her once more. She put her
hand on Tamar's arm, and they stood listen-
ing breathlessly towards the road. But there
was no sound save the muffled gurgle of water.
A pale glow, that had all the while
been deepening, now tinged the mists, and
burst on the long low frontage of the house,
dimming the light shining through the
kitchen window, and picking out the gloss
of the ivy clustering thickly round the little
io JULIET.
shrine above the door. They looked up to
Blaesfield, where the moon had risen, and
was riding serenely in a cloudless sky. Its
light was so piercing, so silent and strong,
and seemed to be so directly on them, that
even Tamar felt a touch of something far
from confidence.
" I'll be having fancies too, if we stay
here much longer," she said, brusquely.
" This light's fair awful ; it's maddling my
brain as well as my eyes. Come along in,
my "
They were walking towards the open
door, but all power, either to move or speak,
was at that moment arrested, bv a sound
that, though very distant, reached them
clearly. It was a sound, half shout, half
cry, and it curdled the blood in their veins.
They looked at each other with dilated eyes.
involuntarily standing still, huddled close
together, and listening, fascinated, for it to
come again.
4>
" WE KEN HO W THE TARN LIPS." 1 1
It did come again, and with a more
appalling distinctness. This time it was a
shriek, short and sharp. Then once more
all was still.
But Molly could stand this no longer.
She loosened her convulsive grip on Tamar's
arm, and ran in, terrified of everything, feel-
ing that something intangible stood by her,
was touching her, breathing in her face ; not
knowing whether the kitchen, with its one
flaring light, or the ghostly moonlit space out-
side, were the safer. That agonized, sharp
cry rang in her ears, the mists were curling
and writhing in fantastic forms before her
eyes. She could have screamed as she stood
there alone, overwhelmed with horrible fears
and presentiments, sick and trembling, her
face pale, and tears of absolute terror in her
eyes. It seemed as though Tamar would
never get the door bolted.
"What was it?' she asked breathlessly
when at last she appeared.
12 JULIET.
" God A'mighty ! I canna ken if it wer
man or beast," said Tamar.
" Oh, it was a man ! ' Molly said.
She drew close to her as she spoke, and
Tamar took her in her arms and cuddled her
head against her breast, as she felt her un-
controllable shivering-.
" What do you think has happened ? '
Molly said.
11 There's the Tarn," Tamar said; "we
ken how its edge lips and the water sucks.
He'd never see his whereabouts if this fog
was on the tops — the dubs would be chock-
full of it."
Molly did not speak. She too had
thought of the Tarn, and that Tamar should
have done so, brought conviction with it.
She sat down on the settle, and nothing w
said. Tamar made a feint at her usual bustle,
but although she stirred the tire and hung
the kettle on the rekken, she knew Matthew
would not come. They waited for hours
" WE KEN HOW THE TARN LIPSr 13
thus ; until the lamp went out, and streaks of
moonshine broadened on the floor, and then
as gradually lessened, after which everything
grew dark and chill, and, unable to bear the
unutterable dreariness any longer, they got
up. cramped and weary, and went to bed to
rest, if not to sleep. Molly, however, soon
fell asleep, and did not awake until the sun
was hiorh in the skv> But Tamar went down
at daybreak. She had heard a sound in the
fold-yard, which she was certain she could
not have mistaken — a low whinny now and
then, and the rattle of iron against stone, as
though a stirrup were swinging against the
wall from some uncertain groping motion ;
and when she opened the back door and went
across into the calf-garth, she found Mur-
dock's horse grazing restlessly up and down,
one stirrup torn from the saddle and a fore-
foot crushed, as though a heavy stone had
fallen upon it. Thus it was evident some-
thing had happened to -Murdock, but quite
i 4 JULIET.
possible that he might still be alive, a possi-
bility which sent her quickly up to Carting at
the High Farm ; and within an hour a search
party was organized, and took their way
straight up Alderdale Glen, and then out on
to the Moors. The Tarn lay about a mile
away, and for it they made. There were foot-
marks in a straight line through, the slime on
the eastern side ; foot-marks that came over
the brow of the moor and became confused
and abundant a few yards from the water,
then having diverged to the north, went on
again to the water's edge ; and where they
stopped, there was a great break in the lip-
ping bank, as though it had given way
under an unusual weight. The men went
as near as they dare to a spot that had
always been shunned alike by man and beast ;
but there was no further trace of fatal catas-
trophe, nothing to make it certain that a
human life had been lost there a few hours
before. It was, however, very certain that
" WE KEN HOW THE TARN LIPS" 15
some one had been to the edofe of that black
Tarn, that the ground had crumbled and slid
beneath something, and that if man or beast
once fell into those waters, whose sinister
suck and ooze could be heard at some dis-
tance, there was no possibility of rescue.
They felt, to a man, that Murdock was
drowned.
And in very truth he was.
Never had the moors looked more deso-
late than as he ascended the hill from the
valley east of Wherndale, where Hipsley
lay. He was in a surly mood, too, having
been baulked of his intentions by the Bank
manager being from home on urgent busi-
ness, and his clerk refusing the withdrawal
of so large a sum in his absence. Disap-
pointment drove him to the inn, where he
drank sufficient to excite without stupefy-
ing him. Had he been stupefied he might
have been safe, for the horse would have
taken its own way home ; but as it w r as, he
1 6 JULIET.
was left with a will and opinion of his own,
and stubbornness to exert both. The valley
he left was exceptionally barren, its hill-sides
checked out into stingy fields, its rare farm-
steads unsheltered by the orthodox wind
blown clumps of larches, its ridges uncrowned
by heather, its stream-courses free Irom
bracken or birch. Miles of moor stretched
before him, and soon there was no sign of
human habitation left. To the ri^ht the linLT
swelled away to the horizon without other
break than a line of tumble-down turf-butts ;
to the left it presently sank into a gully,
beyond which rose the crater-like table of
Dead-man's Hill. The whole of this was
at first illumined by the lurid sunset ; but
no sooner had it faded than treacherous
mist gathered in the hollows. Murdock was
o
riding with drooping reins, and brood in-
over his ill-luck ; and left so far to itself, the
horse had struck off the main road into the
grassy track, that led crosswise to a point
" WE KEN HO IV THE TARN LIPS^ 1 7
directly above Alderdale. It was when it
stumbled against a stone that Murdock first
looked up, and found himself fronting a line
of mist hovering about a foot from the
ground. He pulled up shortly with an oath,
wheeled round in his saddle, and saw a simi-
lar line behind him. In a moment he lost
nerve and coolness. It seemed to his excited
brain that each was advancing to the other,
and would crush him between them. There
was no wind, they could float where they
would. He looked up, and the sky, too, was
ghastly, as though veiled by vapour. With
another oath he struck his spurs suddenly
into his horse's flanks. It bounded forward,
and in a few moments stumbled again, its
shoes rinofin^ on a rock. The sound filled
him with terror. There were no rocks on
that track ; he had lost his way. With chill
fear shooting through every fibre of his body,
he then swung off horseback and groped
vainly about ; but forgetting to keep hold of
VOL. III. 2
1 8 JULIET.
the bridle, the horse wandered off from him,
and no amount of shouting or whistling-
brought it back. The fact that he was lost
on the moors and absolutely alone, was over-
whelming. He had a superstitious horror of
midnight, and shrank from the wise course of
keeping quiet until morning, when in all
probability the fog would lift ; urged by
vague apprehension of danger, he persisted
in a foolhardy attempt at recovering his bear-
ings and making his way home by Fate or
Providence. For an hour he stumbled on,
over rocks, splashing through pools, losing
foothold in the deep ling, and never seeing a
yard before him. There was something
devilish in those mists. They amused them-
selves by softly coiling and uncoiling round
him, now covering him with thin mizzle,
then withdrawing, so as to raise the keenest
expectation of their total disappearance.
When the moon rose, its suffusing light
seemed to dissipate them, but it was net so ;
" WE KEN BOW THE TARN LIPS." 19
they were still there, steaming from the
ground in every direction, and Murdock
plunged on recklessly, breathing defiance to
their trickishness.
Up hill and down hill he tramped, no-
thing impeding his progress, and forgetful
that anything might. He did not think of
Alderdale Tarn, lying in its wide hollow,
with lipping banks and sucking water ; and
thus, when it suddenly struck him that he
was going down a long and very gradual
slope, he had no presentiment of the special
peril into which he was steadily walking.
Even when the ling ceased, and he sank
every fourth step or so up to his boot-tops in
slime, he plunged on without foreboding.
But all at once the ground beneath him
loosened and slid. He lost his balance and
fell backward, uttering the shout that reached
Alderdale, a mile away. Impelled by urgent
terror, he scrambled to his feet again. And
now it flashed across him where he was.
2o JULIET.
With an oath, he turned to fly the evil place,
but felt the ground slide again, and, becom-
ing confused, forgot how he had come and
how he was going, whether he were advanc-
ing or retreating. The mist was so thick
it stifled him. He felt dizzy, lost, undone.
Harassed and terrified, knowing himself to
be face to face with death, conscience-
stricken and mentally agonized, he yet swore
and cursed, with face blasphemously upturned
and starting eyes like those of a throttled
man. He stood a moment balancing him-
self, but the very hills seemed to sway ; he
distinctly heard the oozy gurgle of the water :
to his maddened imagination there appeared
a vague figure, tall as his brother Anthony,
with beseeching eyes, like Anthony's child,
whom he had wronged to the utmost of his
power. It seemed to draw nearer. He
thoueht of the Will in the wainscot ; would it
ever be found ? — of the one hundred pounds
still safe in Hipsley Bank, by no plan of his;
" WE KEN HOW THE TARN LIPS? 21
but for that damned fool of a fellow, there
would have been nothing to show, the last
farthing- would have gone where he was
going.
" Tony ! Tony ! keep quiet ! Back,
man ! ' he shouted, and made a sudden
bound forward. It was not peat, or slime,
or moss, that his feet touched, but a lip of
sandy soil interwoven with rotten ling fibre.
It crumbled away beneath the pressure, tilt-
ing him again forward. He threw out his
arms with a wild shriek, groping for some-
thing to clutch. But there was nothing ; he
felt water against his face, the next moment
it grimly closed above him !
Thus it came to pass that there was
death at the old Grange ; but no corpse and
no burying. For Murdock never rose from
his watery grave. Men went daily for
weeks ; but nothing was ever seen of him
except his whip, which they one day recog-
nized as it floated. They could not reach it,
22 JULIET.
and perhaps had the corpse floated — relin-
quished from the ooze and mass of fibre —
they might not have reached it either, for
there was no possibility of safely nearing the
banks. That the Tarn was his grave, how-
ever, there was no doubt in the Dale. An
evil place had taken an evil life, and many
thought there was a great and terrible fit-
ness in mortal events — especially shepherds,
whose cares with their flocks compelled them
now and then to hazard the loathsome un-
canniness of that wide hollow, and who
generally contrived to do it with substantial
human company and in broad daylight.
"What are you going to do?' Miss
Gliddon asked one day, when she had
walked over to Alderdale and found Molly
alone.
"We shall get away from here as soon
as we can, and that is all I know for myself.
Tamar will <ro amongst her own friends.
She wants to stay with me ; but that is im-
" WE KEN HO W THE TARN LIPSr 23
possible. I can't live at ease ; I must
work."
"What shall you do?" Miss Gliddon
asked a^ain.
" Really and truly, I don't know," Molly
said, with a troubled, nervous laugh, and
then she looked, suddenly, straight at her.
" One thing is certain, I shall never be mar-
ried to Noll," she said, steadily.
" No, my dear," was the quiet assent,
after which they turned from personalities to
gossipy matters of general interest.
When Miss Gliddon rose to go home
Molly said she would walk with her across
the Moss, a companionship which would have
been asked for had it not been spontaneously
<dven, for Miss Gliddon had a sreat deal to
say, and felt that it could be best said walk-
ing. vShe had not come to Alderdale with-
<_>
out substantial practical means of comfort in
her mind. She knew that Molly would be
homeless ; it had already been discovered
24 JULIET.
that she was, too, almost moneyless ; and it
was understood that her engagement was
broken off. Here was a complication of
misfortunes which her warm sympathy could
not rest without relieving, and in this case
the power to relieve was perfectly simple —
Molly should come to the Vicarage as her
companion, and should remain there until
Brunskill won her to be permanently his.
This was a plan after her own heart.
Everything seemed to become plain and
easy : there was nothing in the avowed part
of it to wound Molly's feelings or rouse an
inordinate degree of gratitude ; and the un-
avowed part would work itself out. Brun-
skill would be at the Vicarage constantly —
he must be so, as usual — and time onlv was
needed to accomplish his success. Miss
Gliddon threw herself into the project with
impetuous ardour, and now unfolded its
first phase, with a confidence that was not
misplaced. There was a pause when her
" WE KEN HOW THE TARN LIPS." 25
voice ceased, for Molly needed a few mo-
ments to realize what such an offer involved ;
but there was no hesitation in her own mind.
She turned to her simply, holding out her
hand.
" Thank you," she said ; " you are making
me very happy. I will come to you thank-
fully, and if I honestly feel that I am of use
to you, I will stay as long as you want me.
I am sure I shall want to stay."
" My dearest Molly, you will be invalu-
able to me," Miss Gliddon exclaimed, in the
exuberance of her delight. " The mere fact
of havinof such fresh young" life about me
will do me good, keep me from drying up
mentally as well as physically. The worst
of it is, I shall never want to part from you ;
you'll make me selfish. No, you must not
stay with me too long. I must guard against
that, or in the end I shall be sacrificing you
to my old whims and wants. However, for the
present I shall look upon you as my own."
26 JULIET.
Molly's heart was too full for words.
The relief was inexpressible. One moment
she had not known where to turn for a roof,
still more for sympathetic companionship ;
the next, the load of uncertainty and sus-
pense was removed, and she breathed freely,
walked buoyantly again. It would have
been impossible for her to go to the Orm-
rods. Apart from the fact of dependence,
she could not have borne to live with X oil's
mother, who had never been friendlv since
her en<>'aorement to him, and was ostenta-
tiously satisfied with his desertion ; yet she
had shrunk from the idea of leaving the
Dale, with its manifold associations. ( )f
such a stroke of ^ood fortune she had never
thought, and she could scarcely yet think
that it had fallen to her lot in very truth.
She went far bevond the Moss with Miss
Gliddon, her sense of relief and absolute
content gathering- at each step, and giving a
low to her cheeks and deep luininousness
" WE KEN HO IV THE TARN LIPSr 27
to her eyes, such as they had not yielded for
many a day.
Miss Gliddon had found her pale and
quiet, moving to and fro with an intense,
abstracted thoughtfulness, the result of cease-
less perplexity and suspense ; she left her
brimming over with frank contentment, a
wholly new bent given to her thoughts, and
that, one to which she could safely devote
her brightest faith and hope in mortal things.
As she went home alone, it seemed to her-
self that she could shake off all grief now,
and turn the page to a fairer and nobler
chapter of her life, one that would be met
with the sharpened perception of woman-
hood, and loyally guarded against the de-
liberate mistake of experience. Thus the
mesh was coming through the tangle in her
web, too, and again the instruments in God's
hands were Jules and Ursula Gliddon —
brother and sister — with large, w r arm hearts,
and no further foresight in their own good-
2 8 JULIET.
ness than simple gratitude that it was in
their power to be natural, and accomplish
what nature prompted.
About this time, Brunskill too paid his
first visit to Alderdale since Murdock's death.
Molly had been to Moorhead, and was re-
turning over the Moss, when she met him.
He had been at the Grange, and was walk-
ing to meet her. So far he had kept away,
feeling that her position was now so lonely,
that to obtrude himself might be an intru-
sion, and shrinking with the even morbid
delicacy of a sensitive man from appearing
to take any advantage of that position. He
knew she would never turn to him only
for her own sake ; or suffer her want of home
and friends to influence her towards encou-
raging him ; yet neither would she marry
him for his sake, simply as a pitying reward
for faithful affection. Thus there was not
any ground as yet for confident hope, and
at the same time he was intensely conscious
" WE KEN HOW THE TARN LIPS." 29
that never had his hope been so confident.
He had even already served his own cause
well by his absence. She had begun to
wonder why he did not come, and when she
should see him ; and now that a bend in the
moorland road brought her face to face with
him, her pale gravity changed at once to
delight, and she looked up with a sudden,
happy smile.
He stood holding her hands and ear-
nestly regarding her.
" You don't look well," he said, at last.
" Perhaps that cannot be wondered at."
" You are right ; it cannot. But you
must look better."
11 I soon shall, when I come to the Vi-
carage."
" Yes, I suppose you are coming. I am
very glad. How long must you wear that
black gown?" touching it lightly, and with
a look of strong distaste.
"Not very long "
3 o JULIET.
" I don't like it at all," he interrupted,
laughing shortly. " Good heavens! it seems
to me preposterous that such as you should
have to don the crow because safe death
claimed such as he. One could not think
more of it than that ' he who dies this vear
is quit for the next.' And why should you
disfigure yourself to keep such a life and
death in .one's mind ? There is no fitness in
such things. It is not even a mark of respect.
There was nothing to respect."
" But people would have thought me out
of my mind if I had not done it. I was
obliged to do it without hesitation, and you
know I was."
" I suppose I do," he said, with a smile,
at last relinquishing her hands. " But it is
abominable to be tied down to such conven-
tionalities ; of course there is no reason
in it.
" Did you say all this to Ann Chapman,
when she put on crape for her drunken hus-
" WE KEN HO W THE TARN LIPS." 3*
band ? ' Molly asked, moved irresistibly to
mischief, but walking on with demure eyes
cast down.
" Of course I did not."
" Then why didn't you ? It was very
conventional of her, you know ; they had
often come to blows together."
" I find you are not so serious as you were
looking," he said. " Men were unreasonable
ever, I suppose, and it is perfectly true that I
have never rebelled against the custom in
any one else. But black does not suit you ;
it adds to your paleness, and moreover gives
one a feeling that you are for the time, cut off
from companionship. Then I had just been
reading of a very gay wedding, and the con-
trast was the more pronounced. I have been
sitting an hour on the bridge, waiting for you,
and this morning I had a paper sent. Miss
Ouin is married."
" I scarcely remember her. Who sent
you the paper ? "
.32 JULIET.
" A most natural question,"' said Brunskill.
" Why should I be interested to that extent
in Miss Ouin's wedding that any one should
trouble to send me a paper ? I commend the
reason in your inquisitiveness ; you are much
more logical than I am. Well, Doctor
Thorns sent me the paper ; you remember
him, the lame clergyman with the Gliddons a
month or two ago ? I have a note from him
too. He has sent me it on a strange prin-
ciple—that of 'And things are not what they
seem.' At least so he says."
" The hollowness in i^aietv, does he
mean ?' said Molly. " Is he a cynic? 1
thought him very bright, and that he had the
power of brightening others. I am sure he
did you good."
" Yes, he did me good, rooted out some of
my most pig-headed notions. He is no cynic,
and has enjoyed the wedding immensely.
It was a brilliant affair. Don't you wonder
what the bride worj ? '
" WE KEN HO IV THE TARN ZIPS." 33
"Something too resplendent for me to
imagine. She would not go out in an ordinary
gown as I would."
" You would not, if the man of your choice
wished for something more distinctive of a
joyful event. I, for instance, should like my
bride to come to me adorned as she never had
been before or might be again. It should
not be cream or ivory, or any such miserable
subterfuge, but pure white. Don't you think
you could fall in with such a fad, Molly ?'
Brunskill's voice was low and significant,
and his eyes were fixed on her down-bent
head. Molly was nervously spinning a pebble
in front of her as she walked, tipping it on
and then catching it up again, not daring to
look up or, for a moment, to speak. A sud-
den flood of emotion had rushed to her heart,
and her lips trembled.
" The woman who loved you would not
think it a fad," she said at last, scarcely above
a whisper.
VOL. III. ^ 3
34 JULIET.
Involuntarily Brunskill drew closer i
her.
" The woman who loved me? he repeated.
" That suggests a delicious possibility. I
might have many fads, and would she think
them all worthy attention, at least ? '
" There is such a glamour, you know,"'
she said, still with effort.
" I don't know ; but perhaps some day
some one will teach me."
" Don't pretend you could not give as
well as take," she exclaimed with an involun-
tary sigh of relief, as she realized that no im-
mediate pressure of responsiveness was to be
laid on her.
11 I could — give," Brunskill said slowly,
but folded his arms in determined control
of either alternative. At that moment, how-
ever, he was feeling in every pulse and fibre
that in this, as In other mortal matters, it was
richer to give than to receive. She had spoken
of a glamour ; was it that, that made him
"WE KEN HOW THE TARN LIPS." 35
suddenly look up and around, from the earth
to the sky, with the bewilderment born of
intense realization of all such little words
contain, their pregnant implication ? He did
not know. She held the key to his know-
ledge ; and she was thinking that when she
gave, it should be a gift worthy of the man.
Both knew they had been very near to
mutual trust. ^
CHAPTER II.
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED.
Isabel's wedding had struck others, besides
Brunskill, as a very brilliant affair. It was
natural enough that he, reading the detailed
accounts eiven in the local and London
papers, with an unsophisticated mind open
to its dazzle of dress, presents, and guests,
should be thrown into deep reflection on the
ways and means of a class, from which he
had voluntarily excluded himself; but thut
that class itself, should have a distinct im-
pression that it had been assisting at an
unusually striking ceremony, was a wholly
different matter. It had been unique, in one
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 37
way, at least, having taken place from the
bridegroom's house. There had been many
serious and warm discussions, by every other
member of the two families with Mrs. Ouin,
before she could be brought to consent to
this. Her soul adored the conventionalities
of life, to which Quin was indifferent, and
Isabel openly contemptuous. One thing was
plain, they could not be married in London
when London was out of town, and since
they had been ridiculously bent on suiting
their own convenience and pleasure by Mom-
pesson getting his usual turn at the grouse in
August, and insisting: that no intermediate
visit to some dull country-house should
interfere with their wish to go straight to
their yacht at Marseilles, and thus make the
most of September among the islands of the
Levant, it naturally followed that London
was hopelessly out of town, and more likely
to accept invitations to another person's
house, than to linger in its own, to the banish-
JULIET.
ment of charwomen and holland. So London
was at once condemned as out of the ques-
tion, and the artistic house in Kensington w
shut up simultaneously with others in May-
fair and Beloravia. Thus far, Mrs. Ouin felt
that they did not err, they were scrupu-
lously doing as their neighbours did, and pro-
voking no remark. But where, then, must the
wedding be ? They had no country hou
Coombe had always been their refuge ah
the fatigues of the season, unless they went
to Brighton, or abroad. It seemed to her to
follow naturally that it must be at Brighton,
where many of their friends were, and they
could take a handsome house instead of, as
usual, going to an hotel. It was Isabel
who broached the audacious suggestion
that it should not be at Brighton, but at
Coombe.
She broached it so ingeniously, that Mrs.
Ouin, at the moment, thought it spontaneous,
a mere passing thought to be laughed at.
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 39
But she speedily found herself deceived.
Mompesson and Bel had arranged every-
thing to this end months previously, and for
the last few weeks, Mrs. Mompesson and
Ouin, at least, had also been in the secret.
It seemed to all of them a delightful idea.
Ouin and Isabel were to ofo to the Moors
with Mompesson, and then they would return
and settle down quietly until the auspicious
day arrived, when they would simply meet in
church instead of at the breakfast table.
Every one, immediately concerned, would be
on the spot ; outsiders, to be gathered up
from all points of the United Kingdom and
the Continent, might as well assemble in a
tine and luxurious country house, whose
resources were ample, and fully realized alike
by entertainers and entertained, as in a hired
house in Brighton, or elsewhere. The church
was barely a mile away, across a park, whose
knolls were crowned and glades filled with
trees, whose autumnal crimson and gold
4 o JULIET.
shone resplendent against " Heaven's blue. '
adding glory to the general effect. Of course,
the clay would be fine, and floods of sunshine
bathe the whole landscape ; Coombe was a
noble place, its white stone would gleam in
the sun ; the gardens were in their height of
voluptuous beauty, and glowing in the masses
of hectic colour which immediately precede
decay; the school-children would muster with
flowers in the churchward, the village should
fly bunting, the church should be decorated,
there would be dinners to the tenantry, a
magnificent lunch, a ball at night — and all
this on their own manorial kinds. Bel
warmed to the subject, as she talked. They
had been out driving in the Row, and now
she had her mother quietly ensconced in her
own room with tea, and without tear o! inter-
ruption. They were due at three balls that
night, it was imperatively necessary that
Mrs. Ouin should rest, and Bel had deter-
mined to seize the opportunity, and have the
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 41
matter settled in her own way. She meant
to tell Mompesson when they were dancing
together, that the mutual point was carried.
It did not matter to her, in the slightest
decree, that Mrs. Ouin was at first very
much amused — as much amused as she
ever was over anything ; she maintained her
ground, and quickly proved her own serious-
ness — thus securing argument, and to her
argument meant victory. Mrs. Quin, how-
ever, was more than usually difficult to con-
vince. Everything was at stake, the idea
was preposterous, it would create remark, it
was not proper, not delicate, not modest ; it
looked as though she, herself — Mrs. Ouin —
had no house, no means, no position ; as
though they were beggars, out of society,
ignorant, and low-bred. Such a thine could
not, should not be ! Was Isabel out of her
senses ? Was it one of her father's Quixotic
propositions, mooted on purpose to exasperate
her ? Was Mompesson too lazy to leave his
42 JULIET.
own home to be married ? Whose suggestion
had it been ?
Isabel frankly confessed that it was hers,
and moreover that she was very proud of it.
She had wanted a quiet wedding ; there were
circumstances which seemed to her in their
exceptional character to make unobtrusive-
ness most consistent ; but her cousin would
not hear of it, he wished her to look her
best, to be on that day her loveliest self — a
spectacle for the county to admire to a man,
and not only to a man, but, what was much
more difficult to achieve, to a woman. The
question thereupon naturally arose, " How
could she be admired by the county, when it
would not be there to see her ? ' And Mom-
pesson had declared that must be managed
somehow, and she had laughed, and said it
could only be managed at Coombe. What
ensued upon the proposition she did not
say, but that it had met with instant appro-
bation was obvious from the fact that he
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 43
named it to Quin the same day, and the band
of conspirators carried the motion without
reference to the higher powers. In the
end, the higher powers, too, were made to
yield, if only by force of numbers, and Isabel
set about her preparations with a more irre-
pressible lightheartedness, from the piquancy
given to the whole affair by departure from
established rule.
There was not in those days a happier
woman in England than Isabel Ouin. She
had attained her heart's desire without any
sacrifice of principle or sensitiveness, and the
result was, she knew, not only good for her-
self, but for the man she loved. Humanly
speaking, nothing better could have befallen
him, than this fact of his eyes being opened
to recognize her love and his need of it. It
had already exorcised his haunting fear of
misfortune in the future, not by dismissing
all possibility of such overtaking him, but by
teaching him that it must be met unflinch-
44 JULIET.
ingly as a measure of justice tardily extended
to others, and not necessarily affecting him-
self beyond possession of what he had always
known he held insecurely on tacit trust.
Isabel's courage and practical reasoning had
robbed the doubtfulness of his position of its
bitterness. She did not, like Mrs. Ouin, at
once sink all doubt from the time of her
formal en^a^ement ; on the contrary, she
grappled it the more closely, forcing it upon
his daily consideration, as a matter which
need not affect their happiness or comfort,
and discussing plans for the disposal of them-
selves should the worst come to the worst.
In her own mind only existed certainty that
the worst would come, but at the same time
she could not acknowledge to herself that
the contingency was alarming or depressing.
She wondered that she did not. when she
thought oi the many years' associations that
clung to the very name, of Coombe, her love
for the place, and the many hopes bound up
HOPES FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 45
for years in its master. Every corner in the
house, every nook in the gardens and glade
in the park, was sacred to a memory that had
ardently attached itself to one and another
from impressionable childhood. Yet she
could cheerfully think of relinquishing all
and withdrawing into the comparative retire-
ment of a secondary position in the social
scale. To every one but Mompesson, it
seemed in those days that she must have
forgotten the uncertainty that overshadowed
him. and to which she was linking her own
life. Quin saw her happiness, that held no
hesitation, no intermittence, and apparently
no thought for the morrow, and wondered
with increasing speculation if a blow so great
could fall upon a nature so simply trustful ;
but he had no doubt how she would meet
the emergency should it arise ; he knew the
strength of will and principle that underlay
her daily concessions to the demands of a
frivolous and heedless world. Mrs. Ouin no
46 JULIET.
longer admitted fear into her mind. She had
turned her back upon it, calmly opposing to
it the grand curves of her aesthetically-draped
figure, the coils of her red-^old hair, and
the whole concentrated force of a will that
declared such a possibility to be impossible,
beyond human realization. And she cre-
dited her daughter with a similar intensity
of dismissal for an obnoxious subject. It
was not likely that she should dwell upon
it, still less admit it into her thoughts as a
possibility. Had she done so, she could not
have consented to marry him, still less have
dismissed with such gentle firmness advances
from other quarters, waiving them with a
decision against which it was invariably felt
there was no appeal.
This last season had been a very brilliant
one for Isabel. It was only towards its end
that her engagement had been made known ;
it had been universally admitted in family
conclave that family reasons advised secresy
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 4 7
until the time came for final arrangements •
and she was the sort of girl to be illuminated
by happiness. People saw the illumination,
wondered, speculated, and admired. It was
her third season, but she attained success
without attempting it, and found herself a
centre of attraction. Mompesson, purposely
holding aloof, saw the sensation she created,
and gloried in it. When he had told Quin a
year ago that he should not care a fig for a
woman whom no one admired but himself, he
had spoken the plain truth. He would not
have spoken the truth so plainly now, when
he was fully under her delicate influence ;
but, nevertheless, the fact remained, and his
love burnt the more ardently for the uni-
versal admiration that he now saw bestowed
on her. Isabel herself was amused rather
than gratified by that admiration. Her char-
acter leant instinctively to the domestic
phase of life ; she loved, and her love was
returned, and would gradually pervade every
4 3 JULIET.
fibre of her bein^ and aim of her actions.
For her that was sufficient, all -satisfying.
She traced her popularity to Ouin's portrait
of her, which held a conspicuous position on
the walls of Burlington House that year, and
which she declared, and honestly believed,
was flattered audaciously. There was no
doubt about its being a charming picture, a
striking inspiration of a great artist accus-
tomed to inspirations, and all the more fasci-
nating to those who could compare it with
the original, from the fact that, though mar-
vellously true to nature, the expression w;
one which none oi them had ever seen on
her face. He had called it " Dear Lady I )is-
dain," and she was looking back over her
shoulder with an attempt at haughtiness that
merged, apparently against her will, into
sweet yet defiant archness. The sparkle o(
temper seemed to the uninitiated ones to litt
the corner of a curtain behind which they
would fain penetrate, for the world is not yet
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 49
1 _ - .- _
so given over to languishment that it does
not love a symptom of diablerie in the softer
sex. It was undoubtedly the most successful
portrait of the exhibition, and the original
bore comparison with it at this time of illumi-
nation, when her look was radiant, her air
vivacious, her step buoyant beyond all pre-
cedent. She went through the fatigues of
the season without flagging, and only a few
intimate friends knew the secret of her good
looks. It was generally noticed that Mom-
pesson was a great deal with her, but then
they were cousins, and the risk attending his
marriage would be insuperable to Mr. and
Mrs. Quin — at least, in the opinion of these
wiseacres, who further prophesied that so
lovely a girl would not be satisfied with less
than a title.
It was also noticed that Mompesson was
not so constantly in attendance upon the tall
dark girl to whom his devotion had been
yielded to the point of infatuation the pre-
vol. in. 4
5o JULIET,
. . , ,
vious year. But that was not to be wondered
at either, she was only a governess ; and young
men must sow their wild oats, and come to
their senses at last ; and governesses find
their own level in the social scale, and come
to their senses too. Of course, Mompesson
would marry Lai Tatton, thus uniting two
adjoining estates, if nothing untoward oc-
curred, or, if it did, securing the dignity of
only having to move next door, as it were.
And for Miss Ouin ? Well, there was
plenty of choice, and the wise world was
universally agreed that it would fall upon
Lord Ferrars, who was known to be crazy at
this time on the subject of golden hair and
the sweetest blue eyes ever seen.
And at this time also the wise world, in-
cluding poor Lord Ferrars, who had never
yet had courage to put his fortune to the
test, but lived on groundless hopes, was
electrified by the news that Mompesson of
Coombe was the winner of the prize, and
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 51
that they were most unfashionably and obso-
letely in love with each other.
From the midst of the sensation this
announcement caused, and to which the pre-
vious one could not be compared, Isabel
escaped to Coombe, to be followed by a
milder, because written, buzz of congratula-
tion and exclamation points ; and from
thence again in a few weeks to the High-
lands, where Quin and Mompesson and she
entertained a circle of choice spirits and en-
joyed themselves the whole livelong day.
It did not by any means follow with Mom-
pesson that because he went to the Moors
he must shoot the moor birds ; he was quite
content to do everything in his power for his
friends' enjoyment, providing they would
leave him the liberty of taking his in his own
way. Quin was an inveterate sportsman,
and had onlv let his shooting in Wherndale
when Mompesson reached an age to offer
him the superior attraction of Highland
LIBRARY
uwvFRsmr of iuinois
52 JULIET.
shooting, where he had full scope not only
for walking twenty miles a day and " larding
the lean earth ' to his own eventual advan-
tage, but for storing in his mind for future
use with his brushes the wonderful glories
of autumnal colouring on mountain and
moor, glen and loch, and wood-girdled lake.
Mompesson had never much cared for these
accessories ; the picturesque irregularities in
their day's tramp simply suggested to him
more toil, weariness, and pulls at his flask ;
but now he found out their genuine use,
since they afforded every excuse for wander-
ings with Isabel from one point to another,
to catch various views under various effects
of dewy morning, high noon, or glowing sun-
set. They could not have strolled about in
this way in a level town, therefore he at last
appreciated the lonely moors, secured by
their altitude from the insidious march of
houses and streets ; and learnt to regard them
from a point of view more fascinating than
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 53
the artists', for it shone in ''the light that
never was on land or sea."
Thus the time drew on for the wedding ;
and when they returned to Coombe, it was
to find peace flown before an advanced state
of preparation for the great day. The two
families were now once more under one roof,
and Juliet was in the midst of them, and
feeling like a traitor to their cause, the
amount of her knowledge standing out
sharply against their unsuspicious ignorance.
She lived at this time certain that, after all,
something momentous would occur to stop
or postpone the wedding. A feverish sus-
pense increased on her as she realized each
hour more clearly the vital importance of the
facts she so fully knew, and was bound in
honour to guard so zealously from the know-
ledge of those whom thev would most keenlv
interest. At last she wrote to Brunskill,
urging him to reconsider his decision, and
suffer others to act in plain daylight. But
5 \ JULIET.
Brunskill was firm. In her anger she called
him obstinate, senseless, ridiculous ; but she
knew in her heart that his reasons must be
good. It was, however, a terribly sore point
with her. So long as he held out against
the advancement of his claims, it was certain
that he was not engaged to Molly ; and only
by his engagement to Molly could she find
perfect satisfaction in her own engagement
to Ormrod. With that, she considered that
vital danger for the future and remorse for
the past would be precluded. She felt,
justly, that Ormrod would marry no one but
herself, so lon^ as she was unmarried ; his
love, though poor, was hers, and an engaged
man could not do the harm that an unen-
eaeed man might do. It was her intention
to be near him when possible, and to marry
him so soon as circumstances would permit.
After her letter to Brunskill, she wrote
to Doctor Thorns, to try to induce him to
influence him. Of this letter the Doctor
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFLLLED. 55
took no notice, except by going over to
Moorhead and seeing Brunskill personally.
In the main object of his journey he was
unsuccessful, and therefore, by not replying
to Juliet, left her in doubt whether he had
received her letter. He was at this time in
most relentless mood, and all the more so
because he was bound to help in the marry-
ing of Mompesson and Isabel, and keenly
conscious that, in all that brilliant assem-
blage, he should care only to catch the voice
and meet the eyes of one infatuated and
most disappointing woman, who was rushing
headlong to her ruin. He thought that,
in leaving the Rectory, and rallying to his
aid, silence, absence, and distance, he had
played his last card, and that the result had
proved him foiled.
Meanwhile the day drew near, and no-
thing happened. Then the house filled with
company, there was a ceremonious dinner-
party the night before, the wedding, and
5
6 JULIET.
the final arrangements were concluded.
After dinner, the drawing-room windows
were thrown open into a temporary pavilion
erected on the terrace, and which was banked
with plants, and lit up with Chinese lanterns.
There, was, however, a beautiful harvest
moon that rose presently above the woods,
and paled all fictitious light ; and in its still
splendour the gardens and park looked so
alluring, that by degrees the terrace was
deserted, and every one wandered off among
the trees. Juliet had been playing, but find-
ing herself unappreciated by the dowagers
among the cushions of the chairs and sofas,
left the piano and stepped out too, taking
her way to a favourite glade in the park,
where she thought she should be alone. She
was in the mood to be alone since Ormrod's
company was denied her, and she wanted to
think and <^et rid of the glare and dazzle of
candles and brilliant toilets and jewels.
The glade was very still. As she turned
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 5 7
the knoll where the ground dipped, there
was not a sound to be heard. She stood a
moment looking round before plunging into
the gloom, for the trees were thick, and
the light could not penetrate them. Near
her, however, the trunks were sharply out-
lined, and threw massive shadows across the
path. A few crisp leaves had already fallen,
and, when she stepped off the turf, their
crunching under her feet startled her into
thinking others besides herself must be
w r alking there. Again she stood still— and
the silence remained unbroken. So she
walked slowly on, but the place was more
ghostly than she had expected, and her
courage flagged. When she got to the end,
where the trees gave way to a lonely pool,
she felt that it needed some resolution to
turn and face the gloom again. The pool
was lying like a silver disk, mirroring in its
midst the moon hanging above it ; and she
watched for some moments the slow move-
58 JULIET.
ment of the mirrored moon until it slipped
under the reedy banks. It was as she turned
at last that she caught a distant sound of
footsteps in the glade. She was not fright-
ened ; the park was private, and it could
only be some one belonging to the Hall ;
but she wondered who it was, as it was cer-
tainly some one alone, like herself. Another
moment, and a man emerged into the full
moonlight, and stood looking at her ; but
they were some distance apart, and she did
not recognize him.
" Who is it?" she said.
" Oh, it is you ! I thought I could not
be mistaken ; and you are moonstruck. I
am also, so we are for once hail fellows well
met.'
The voice was Doctor Thorns', but she
did not come to him with outstretched hands
as she once would have done ; on the con-
trary. she shrank into herself, and as far from
him as possible, leaving all advances to his
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 59
judgment. He did not hesitate to make
them, but came up rapidly until he was close
to her.
" I am not exactly welcome here, am I ?'
he said.
44 I did not know you were at the Rec-
torv.
4
" And did not care."
" Why did you not dine with us ? '
14 Because I did not mean to see you until
you were in church with the other drones
and butterflies to-morrow. But Fate has
willed otherwise, my evil star has long been
in the ascendant. I only came here because
it was a favourite spot of yours."
''And where have you been all these
months ? '
44 From crocus-time to aster-time — yes,
months ! Here, there, and everywhere.
Ask rather where I have not been. From
glorious old Egypt to the Pillars of Her-
cules, from Etna to the Naze ; and every-
6o JULIET.
thing I have seen has been through a phan-
tom more fascinating than Cyoeraetk, though
strangely like her. Now I find the phan-
tom in real flesh and blood again, and look-
ing very '
He put his hand on her arm, and had
turned her to the light before she knew what
he was doing.
"What? " she said.
-Sad."
The colour rushed to her face.
" I am not sad ; I am happy."
" Ah ! then you know who the phantom
was. Yes, you look sad, but it becomes you
at present. Well, so I am to congratulate
you, but then one does not always do what
one ought to do. Thus, I shall not con-
gratulate you, but I'll congratulate him.
Are you expecting him here to-night ? Is
this a tryst ? '
" No, I am not expecting Mr. Ormrod."
4< Ah ! how well love understands ambi-
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 61
guity and pronouns, and meets them, too, so
naively. So it is only a tryst with the moon ;
very nice, and very effective. Do you know
I thought you were a ghost when I was in
the darkness, and saw you ahead of me in
this gleaming white dress. You might be
the bride, and going to act Ginevra in this
pool. You are sure you were not going to
hide that sad face under the water — good
God, surely you were not ?
" If it is sad, it is a lie," she said, steadily.
" Or perhaps the light. You shall see to-
morrow how little reason you have for talk-
ing in this way."
" Perhaps it is not the light, but the shade
from my face, or the autumn chill in the air ;
chill will tell. Don't stand any longer, but
come home, and let me take your arm ; don't
be afraid of me, Juliet — not now. It is
nothing to take your arm, I have done it
many a time. I only want to feel your
presence."
62 JULIET.
His voice had changed from sharp dog-
matism to supplication, for she hesitated,
and he saw her hesitation, and it stung
him.
11 There is a shorter cut that way." she
said, indicating with a gesture the other side
of the pool. " I should be home in a feu-
moments, and would change my shoes. I
think "
". Our thoughts do not tally then," he
broke in, " and the weaker will must yield.
The glade is dark, mysterious, secret, it will
tell nothing. You are afraid, if you won't
come."
" I am not afraid," she said, and gathered
up her gleaming dress over her arm and
went down the bank with him.
" We shall not hurry," he said ; " I must
come to Your other side. I don't want all
that white silk, I want your arm.*'
She stood still while he suited the action
to the word. Her gloves were oft" her
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 63
sleeves cut to the elbow, and she only wore
a fleecy shawl as a wrap. In a moment she
felt the cold pressure of his palm on her
flesh — such a thing had happened times with-
out number previously, but this was the first
time she thought of and almost resented it.
They were lost in the gloom again imme-
diately, there was no one to see them, but
she knew she was walking as she had never
walked in her life before, erect and proud
and disdainful, for she was on the verge
of tears, and her eyes burnt, her breast
heaved, the lump in her throat well-nigh
choked her.
" Now, tell me all about it," he said.
There was no answer. She could not
trust her voice.
" 1 ask as a friend, Juliet. I don't wish
to be a Mentor anv longer."
" But what do you ask ? "
" Many things. Do you love him ?'
" Yes."
64 JULIET.
u You think me a fool, don't you ? Do
you honour him ? "
There was a pause. She was innately
true, and not even in defiance could she utter
a falsehood.
" I have not thought of that," she said,
and she shivered, expecting a sardonic laugh.
But he did not laugh. He was far
past it.
" Do you trust him ? ' he asked.
The pause was longer this time. He
felt her arm twitch involuntarily ; and he
waited.
" No," she said, at last, without flinching
or trembling, or lowering her voice or walk-
ing faster. It was an ice-bound monosvllable,
and it made his heart leap with anguish and
compassion and appeal that it might even
yet be given him to find the right way of
convincing and saving her.
" Now," he said, " let us reverse the
order of succession on my behalf. No, don't
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 65
pull your arm away," as she made an attempt
to do so, " treat it as a mere matter of form.
Do you trust and honour me, Humphrey
Thorns ? "
" With all my sense," she said, laughing
a nervous, half-strangled laugh, in her en-
deavour to humour him, playfully, and to
avoid the danger of seriousness at such a
juncture.
But he would not tolerate her levity ; he
was in deadly earnest, and she must be the
same.
" Be quiet ; it is a game of hearts and
souls, heaven or hell, the blessed or the
damned," he said. " You may laugh at me
in the flesh, rheumatic and hobbling, but not
at my principles or moralities, or vocation.
Juliet, do you love me ? "
" Not a jot," she said, and she suddenly
wrenched herself free, and stamped her foot
as she turned and faced him. He could just
distinguish the outline of her figure and the
VOL. III. ;
66 JULIET.
burning- of her eyes as they dilated and fixed
themselves on his, charged with anger and
defiance and keenest passion.
But she need not have defied him. It
left him unscathed, and became puerile before
his tranquillity.
" I am quite satisfied," he said, calmly.
11 It is true I love you, but my love is my
own, and I have your trust and respect,
which seem to me the best of what you have
had the power of giving. You are only
proving yourself, like many another, the fool
of circumstance rather than its architect.
You speak of sense, but of course sense is
nothing by the side of inclination. You are
to be pitied, not condemned. From my heart
I pity you."
" Yes, I am to be pitied," she said, unex-
pectedly.
" Do you court pity, then ? '
"No, I dread it. It unnerves me. '
" Then are you no longer a free agent ? '
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 67
" I feel as though I were this moment,"
she exclaimed, incoherently.
"Why only this moment ? Juliet, break
loose from it all and come away with me ;
marry me and turn your back upon it. Be-
lieve that my love is so great that it will
compel you to love me sooner or later. There
is no risk. I have patience. Juliet, you
trust me now as you never can trust him,
trust me a little further. You know that I
love and honour and trust you with my whole
heart. It is yours until death."
For a moment she was silent. They had
come now to the edge of the glade, and he
could see her face, wrunor with the strucrele
of her heart, pale and desperate. He had
seized her hands, and was holding them
pressed against his breast, his burning eyes
fathomed the goaded agony of hers. Would
she yield ? He was tempting her to a dis-
honourable flight of cowardice and failure,
which no present pressure could excuse. Was
68 JULIET.
this the way in which to win her from her
weaker self? He knew he would never have
been so won, and he thought that she would
not either.
Nor was she.
" I cannot," she said, with a sob in her
voice.
" You cannot ? "
" No, don't ask me. It is my own mis-
fortune that I don't love you the better, don't
make a grief of it. I have passed my word
to be loyal to all I know of him now. I have
forgiven much in spite of myself. I shall
have more to overlook, but it won't be any-
thing" vital ; and so long" as there isn't vital
deception again before we marry, he shall
have my allegiance. After we marry, he shall
have it in spite of everything. But our en-
gagement is acknowledged now, so there
can't be more — great — harm — done, can
there ? Dearest friend, you must go away
again until you can bear to think of me only
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 69
as a friend. You must try to do that. Write
to me sometimes, will you ? "
But he repelled compromise vehemently.
" You don't know what you ask. You
don't know what you are talking of," he
urged. " Juliet, I swear you don't love this
fellow as I love you, or you could not be so
cold-blooded, you would know better than
mock me. I will ask less of you ; give him
up, but don't marry me — just give him up for
your own sake."
. " I love him so well that I must act for
his sake."
" That is a miserable subterfuge, just one
of the moralities a deluded woman takes
refuge in. Juliet, I tell you again, he is a
knave. He is deceiving you yet — now.
That Dale affair was nothing ; he flies at
higher game than either her or you. There's
a poor soul -"
" Hush ! " she said ; " I will not hear
from you. How do you know ? what do you
/
o JULIET.
know ? What have you been ferreting out,
you, with your prejudice against him that
robs him of all goodness and me of all happi-
ness. What have you heard ? No, I won't
hear. He shall tell me, or no one shall ; and
he won't tell me, for I will never, never, let
him see that I mistrust him, that I think
there is anything. Go away, do ; don't you
see how miserable I am, how w r retched vou
make me ? O God ! I am very unhappy !
Don't you see how miserable I am ? Don't
tempt me, Humphrey. I should only blame
myself, and always, always be wanting him
and his forgiveness. Don't let it be that way,
Humphrey ; don't make me sin against him.
Perhaps, if he sin against me again- "
Her voice dropped to a whisper. She
was standing with her hands pressed to her
heart, as though but for that pressure it
would burst ; and her face was upturned ; he
saw it in the moonlight, white and agonized ;
and he felt she could bear no more.
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED. 7 1
'• Don't tempt me, Humphrey," she said
once more, and turned and looked at him
with dilated eyes shining through tears.
He seized her hands, grasping them until
she could have screamed with pain, covering
them with kisses, but not coming one step
nearer than her hands. His face was as pale
as hers, and set in a desperate resolution,
the more terrible in contrast to the con-
vulsive kisses that were for the moment his
only safe mode of relief. Then, without a
word, he dropped her hands, and, turning,
plunged again into the darkness. She lis-
tened to his footsteps, crunching the dead
leaves that strewed the path, hearing them
grow fainter and fainter. When they were
out of hearing, she put her hand to her head
and went and leant against a tree, moving
uncertainly, as though she were half para-
lyzed and numb in limb. Her heart was not
benumbed ; it throbbed as though it must
burst, and ached with a strange dull pain
72 JULIET.
which tears could not have relieved, which
must wear itself out. She wanted Ormrod at
that moment to comfort her.
Presently she recovered herself suffi-
ciently to walk on. But when she reached
the drive, and saw the Hall before her, with
its rows of lighted windows, and the gardens
where figures were still strolling, she felt it
impossible that she could again join such a
scene of gaiety. The struggle of that hour
had been one as of life and death, and she was
exhausted. She drew nearer, slipping from
tree to tree, and courting their shadows, lest
she should be seen. Then she caught the
sound of music ; some one was playing a
waltz, and dancers moved across the lio'ht
that streamed from the drawing-room on to
the pavilion. She crept round to a side-door,
and succeeded in reaching" her own room
without having met any one.
The next da)- Isabel was married, but
Doctor Thorns did not assist, as was in-
HOPES, FULFILLED AND UNFULFLLLED. 73
tended. He had gone away again, and sent
a note of excuse without explanation. His
place at luncheon was filled by Ormrod, who
had met Juliet in the church-porch, having
come down from town on purpose to take his
place near her on so important an occasion.
She had not expected him, and the surprise,
coming so close upon the previous night's
grief, was almost too great for her compo-
sure. The little attention touched her beyond
its real worth, and made her at least look
happy.
CHAPTER III,
WITH MERLIN.
Having come to Coombe, Ormrod proved
himself in no hurry to leave it. There were
still a few weeks before Mrs. Mompesson
was to vacate the Hall for paperers and
painters, and he had his own most excellent
reasons for wishing to be near Juliet, and
riveting his influence over her bv everv
means in his power. The old proverb of
" Where there's a will there's a way," was
once more true in his case. He was not
asked to stay at the Hall, so had to find
quarters elsewhere, and to cast about for
an object less obvious than the real one
for his zeal in doing so. It was easy for
WITH MERLIN. 75
a landscape painter to turn the Park at
Coombe to eood account under such circum-
stances. Within a few davs he had secured
rooms at the Home Farm, and set up his
easel on the outskirts of the glade where
Juliet had taken her moonlight walk. He
was going to paint the pool where it reflected
a group of beeches that swept the bank
above. To a great extent, that picture re-
mained a subject for the future. He was
wholly content to be near Juliet, with con-
stant opportunities for intercourse with her.
In those circumstances, he knew himself to
be safe. She satisfied him, and he was out
of harm's way, which was his style of ex-
pressing himself as out of the way of doing
others harm. There were, however, moods
of hers which he did not understand and
considered dangerous, moods when she was
feverish, then scornful, imperious, or sar-
castic by turn. He did not know how new
these were to her, how foreign to her nature ;
l() JULIET.
but was content to pass them over, admiring
their diablerie, and congratulating himself
easily, that they did not clash with anv such
of his. He had no objection to hers being
the ruling will. She was made to rule, and
her dominion might as well embrace him as
not. He rather prided himself upon his
compliant disposition ; it was unusual in a
man who mi^ht reasonably be termed " a fine
O J
fellow." It saved trouble also, and invested
him with a halo of amiability.
During those weeks they met every day.
Their en^acrement was now generally known,
and sketching was a congenial occupation in
which Lily occasionally joined. Lily, how-
ever, troubled them very little, being devoted
to her pony, and bidding good-bye to her
favourite haunts and old people, and Juliet
and Ormrod had their time mostly at their
own disposal. It was glorious weather, the
trees in the Park shone resplendent in the
sunshine, the crimson of the beeches and
WITH MERLIN. 7 7
amber of the chestnuts, stood modelled
against the crisp blue of the skies like mo-
saics of a golden age ; wherever there was a
gleam of water it gave back the lavishment
of colour ; and of all the nooks about
Coombe, there was none prettier than this
favourite glade of Juliet's, where the trees
separated on either hand and swept round
the margin of the pool. The pool was set
in a fringe of reeds ; at the lower end it
trickled away among mossy stones and pre-
sently slipped into an oak-spinney, to skirt
the path leading to the Home Farm ; there
was on the bank a thicket of gorse, " never
bloomless," that clambered among some grey
rocks cropping up from the turf, but never
succeeded in covering them, and among this
gorse now was a tangle of bramble and wild
geranium, with its many rosy eyes looking
meekly up to the sun. Juliet was glad that
Ormrod had chosen this place in which to
paint, or, rather, make a feint at painting ; it
78 JULIET.
gradually effaced from her mind the remem-
brance of her meeting with Doctor Thorns,
and it was very private, and very silent, and
very sunny. The walk thence to the Farm
was in every particular a lovers' walk ; silent
too, and with the sun slanting betwixt the
russet-tinged oaks on to the path, where
leaves whirled along madly before even-
eddy of breeze. They would stop now and
again to watch a squirrel dart up a tree, or a
wagtail hop from stone to stone In the little
stream that murmured over the waving cress
and gathered here and there into shining
shallows, from whence it seemed loth to
slip again. They walked there at all hours
of the day, just strolling backwards and for-
wards, careless of the easels near the pool or
of their ostensible purpose of work ; Ormrod
making love to her in every possible way,
and Juliet striving hard to conquer the feel-
ing of unrest and irritable speculation which
was, unknown to herself, becoming her
WITH MERLIN. 7 9 •
normal condition. Sometimes she thought
it was exorcised ; his unvarying affection
could not, she felt, excuse anything but per-
fect satisfaction, and she was lulled to con-
tentment. Then again a chance word, a
complacent insinuation, a confident smile,
roused the old demons of distrust and mis-
giving, and delivered her up once more a
prey to misery.
" I shall never be perfect, you know," said
Ormrod, one day when he had been making
ducks and drakes across the pool. They
had been silent for some time, and the re-
mark was apropos of nothing that had been
said.
" Then you will be like me," Juliet said
quickly.
" No ; I shall never be as near perfection
as you. But that is not what I meant. You
are making me humble-minded. I want you
to understand that there are faults of mine
that I shall never overcome."
So JULIET.
" Perhaps you have only just begun to
consider them faults."
" I believe so ; it is your earnestness —
you are awfully earnest, you know, Juliet,
stait-laced, some people would say ; indeed,
I should say so, if I didn't admire you as I
do. I don't know but what you're in the
right. There's so much laxity and indiffer-
ence and jeering in the world now, that if
some people didn't make a stand, crimes
would come to be considered mere peccadil-
loes. And you have an influence over one,
Juliet. My faults seem less like peccadilloes
than they did a year ago ; but, none the less,
the faults will be there to the end of the
chapter."
" I think, if you have only now thought of
them as faults, you might be a little more
sanguine of losing them."
" I never shall," he said. "It isn't a
case of pour mamuser, but they simply over-
come me. I slip into them before I know
WITH ME RUN. 8
where I am. I hope, dear, you will be able
to bear them and not be unhappy."
" At least I shall know you don't wish me
to be unhappy."
" Yes ; but you are .sensitive."
" I can get over it, if they don't make
others unhappy," she said gently, with a wist-
ful tone in her voice that pierced him to un-
easiness, but brought him no nearer the plain
speaking for which she longed. She knew
exactly at what he was driving ; but he had
good private reasons for wishing to impress
the eeneral fact on her mind without de-
scending to dangerous particularities. He
was haunted by the knowledge that they
should meet next in Italy ; and Evelyn Daly-
rymple was in Italy, which was not too large
a country for separate tracks to converge
quickly to one centre.
Juliet's words brought back to him a vivid
picture of Evelyn Dalyrymple as he last saw
her. Decidedly she was then unhappy ; he
VOL. III.
82 JULIET.
should not have liked Juliet to have seen
her. And he had had letters from her which
could not be called happy letters, either in
tone or intention, for they were full of vehe-
ment reproaches, and wild speculations as to
what kept him silent and away from her, and
appeals to him to write, or return, or do any-
thing compromising, such as it was his firm
resolve to avoid doing. He had not penned
a single line to her at any time, there was
nothing in black and white to condemn him ;
but he knew too well her passionate lack of
self-control and her assurance to doubt that,
should occasion offer, " she would rouse a
wasps' nest about his ears," and condemn
him by her own self-condemnation.
No wonder that at such reflections he
trembled, picturing Juliet's stern integrity,
and remembering how nearly the current of
her anger and indignation had once swept
her beyond his reach. I [e was anxious to
grain her consent to be married soon. His
WITH MERLIN. 83
prospects warranted it. He was getting on
well, thanks to such powerful patronage as
Mr. Quin's. " Cyoeraeth ' had commanded
general attention, had sold well, and secured
for him various commissions, whose fulfil-
ment more than upheld his reputation. He
was considered one of the most promising
artists of the day. A fine future lay before
him, and he calculated that his marriage with
such a woman as Juliet, and a few subsequent
years passed quietly in laborious study, in
some inexpensive Florentine or Roman
quarter, would be gain rather than loss.
His present resources and prospects forbade
the possibility of such a step as marriage
crippling him. But he unexpectedly found
that Juliet's view of the case differed from
his own. She confessed she thought they
would each, as yet, be better apart ; not that
she feared poverty, but that reverses were pos-
sible, and might hopelessly embarrass him at
the most critical point in his career, if he
84 JULIET.
were hampered by a wife and household.
Gradually, however, he overcame these ob-
jections, which he stigmatized as prepos
terous, with their good health, and Mr.
Quin ready in an emergency to advance the
needful. They began to talk of their mar-
riage as likely to occur within another year,
to decide upon the Italian town where they
would settle, and the style of villa or rooms
they coveted. Once having decided to face
her future thus far, Juliet became each day
more li^ht-hearted, showing herself under a
new phase of arch frankness, which surprised
and bewitched him. Occasionally, also, it
piqued him. She ventured, sometimes, to be
sarcastic, to bid him humour her, instead of
expecting that she should constantly humour
him ; to talk of their married life in the first
person plural, rather than the first person
singular. This knack of playful sarcasm had
been fostered in her by Doctor Thorns; but
Ormrod had the horror of a conceited man of
WITH MERLIN. 85
anything approaching irony ; it made him
suspicious, watchful, often sulky. She
laughed and teased unconcernedly in those
happy days, always coaxing him back to
£ood humour in the end. She used to get
up arguments on purpose, apparently, to
prove their disagreement. One day, she
objected to the idea of a honeymoon. " Let
us be unusual," she said, knowing how he
clung to the conventional ; and when he pro-
tested against departure from established
rule, she acquiesced, by promising to con-
form, and to keep her promise in mind by
having a little statue of Mrs. Grundy in each
of their rooms, and beneath the motto, " Do
as your betters do, in spite of your individual
means, mind, and morals."
11 That, at least, will be harmlessly unique,"
she said.
" I don't want to be unique," he said.
" You may be master, Ju, but don't, for
Heaven's sake, be outrageous."
86 JULIET.
'• My clear Noll, don't you know this blase
world loves outrageousness, like a piquant
sauce ? It may turn a Puritanical back, but
it contrives to look over its shoulder. It
loves to be startled, a sensation which is,
I should think, more ancient than that of
wrong-doing, for Eve must have experienced
it when the serpent made such advances to
her.''
" All a myth ! " he exclaimed, feeling safe
with the serpent.
" You are the most practical man I ever
met," Juliet exclaimed, rising from her rock
among the gorse. " You can't appreciate
one's flights of imagination."
l< But I can appreciate you "
" No. You think all the time — ' I wish
she were not so frivolous.'
" Clever, you mean," he said; "yes, I
declare you bewilder me sometimes. I don't
know when you're serious ; you should adapt
yourself to your company."
WITH MERLIN. 87
t% I am sorry I have been so wicked to-
day," she said, demurely.
Thev had reached the gate into the
spinney, by which round-about way he was
seeing her home in time for tea, and she put
her hand on his arm when they were in the
quiet woodland path where the low sun
slanted warmly, and looked up at him, with
her heart's love shining in her eyes. Orm-
rod returned the pressure and the look, with
a pang in his sense of possession — lie was not
good enough for her.
" I shall never be perfect, you know, ' she
said, mimicking him.
He stopped suddenly, took her in his
arms and kissed her passionately, again and
again ; then releasing her, held her at arm's
length and crazed at her.
" Juliet," he said, in a low voice of emo-
tion, " I believe you could do anything with
me, except make me as noble as yourself."
"I am not noble, I- only try," she said,.
88 JULIET.
incoherently, touched to tears ; " don't wor-
ship me," she added, with an April gleam.
" I cannot do less ; it will be in my heart
always," he said, and kissed her again reve-
rently, with something like silent prayer.
That was their last walk at Coombe. In
a day or two Juliet went home, Ormrod
accompanying her for a night on his way
back to town. The Laybourne family had
dwindled now, Sophie had married her
curate, Carrie's time was chiefly devoted to
nursine at St. Bartholomew's, Sam was farm-
ing in Manitoba, and Phil was in engineering-
works at Dundee ; the twins alone being left
as representatives at the Rectory of the
original eight ; but on the news of Ormrod
being expected there with Juliet, having
flown on the wings of Mrs. Laybourne's pen
to the four points of the compass, three of
the affectionately inquisitive brothers and
sisters assembled to welcome them, or rather
to criticise freely from the two standpoints
WITH MERLIN. 89
of their early acquaintance with Ormrod, and
their constant speculation over Juliet. She
had always been a riddle to them, baffling
and interesting. They had held themselves
ready to hear something astounding of her
some day, but had never expected anything
so astounding as this. The announcement
of her engagement had come upon them like
a thunderbolt. She had never previously
named Ormrod, and no hint had reached
Mrs. Lay bourne, even from Miss Gliddon.
Some of them had thought her impervious
to the advances of the opposite sex, others
had expected her to marry brilliantly. The
night previous to their arrival, discussion
was very warm at the Rectory, but while the
vounorer ones were indignant and sarcastic,
the elders simply showed themselves para-
lysed ; it was incredible to them that such a
fate should have pursued their daughter in
spite of the separation of years, and that of
all men in the world, none should be found
9o JULIET.
for their clever Juliet, but this son of a car-
penter, whose genius was now more than
ever their bane.
" But that is ridiculous, mamma," said
Sophie; " I should think the name of Judy's
admirers is legion, only she is so reserved,
she w r on't tell one anything. When I was
engaged, and used to talk to her of Arthur,
in hopes she would confide in me in return,
which was only fair, she never opened her
lips but to say ' Yes,' and ' No,' and wish me
happiness. As if I didn't know I should
be happy ! She was as quiet as though she
never even thought of such things, and
all the time I knew about the Doctor, at
least."
" Don't, Sophie," Carrie said, " if you
were right, it was very noble of Juliet ; but
then Judy is noble, and I don't think you
were right."
" What doctor ? " asked Mrs. Laybourne,
thinking hazily of the country practitioner
WITH MERLIN. 9 1
who performed his rounds in a little gig, and
happening to be a widower, might have
admired from a distance so bright a wander-
ing star.
" I was quite right," Sophie said, calmly.
" Did you never know, mamma, how very
much in love Doctor Thorns was ? '
11 Thorns ! ' ejaculated Lay bourne, bound-
ing from his chair as though a bullet had
whizzed past his ear.
" Come, S.," said Phil, " this is about as
conveiiable as the other. Judy's fancy must
run on odd birds."
" Not at all. The Doctor has good
birth, good education, and good means on
his side. Of course, he is older than she,
but that is the very thing for her. She wants
guidance, she'll never be a happy woman if
she has to guide. Then, of course, Mr.
Mompesson admired her."
" Mompesson, of Coombe, and she his
sister's governess !
92 JULIET.
" And might have been his sisters sister,
if she would.''
" But, Sophie, how do you know ? You
say she never told you anything," asked
Mrs. Laybourne.
" I know," said Sophie, oracularly, " I
have met people, and Arthur knows the man
the Doctor got as curate- in-charge, and the
village people will talk, you know ; and
there was something, too, about a baronet,
but I could not make out the name."
" It seems that others too will talk, be-
sides villagers," said Phil. " We'll meet
Judy with all this information to-morrow,
discharge it at her point blank, and bully her
with her lack of taste and sense and worldli-
ness. I should just like to say to that cad,
' You can walk out again, sir ; my sister has
changed her mind in time.' If Sam were
here he would be up to something ingenious
and clinching ; but he isn't, and I haven't his
pluck. Father, it's a preposterous affair. To
WITH MERLIN. 93
think of Juliet sailing in upon us in her
serene way, and we boiling with rage, and
having to countenance such an affair, and be
civil to a fellow brought up among shavings
and glue-pots. He can't be a gentleman,
and what less can satisfy such a girl ? '
" He may be a gentleman, one of Nature's,
who are often the best," said Laybourne,
groping for comfort, but really more hope-
lessly bewildered than his wife, for she
remembered that she had had a hidden fear
of this years ago, and he had never had a
qualm on the matter.
When they saw him the next day they
began to think, in spite of prejudice, that
Laybourne's surmise might be correct. They
came in late in the afternoon. Juliet had
said in her letter that no one was to meet
them, an injunction which, according to Phil's
contemptuous rendering, meant " spooning
along: the lanes." To a certain extent it was
so. She had asked Ormrod if he would
94 JULIET.
object to leaving the train at Dudford instead
of Marshlands ; and as he did not, she ex-
plained shyly that she wanted to walk again
now with him through Dudford lanes, so as
to efface the impression of their previous
walk there together. Of course he did not
understand her motives, many of her wishes
seemed to him mere whims, but he humoured
her, and scarcely took the trouble to wonder
over such peculiarities. Thus they arrived
an hour later than was expected, but as their
luggage preceded them, it was certain they
were on the way, and that the spooning was
of unconscionable length. Then at last the
garden gate opened, voices were heard, one
of the twins flew into the drawing-room to
warn her mother, Phil and Carrie suspended
their operations over the lawn tennis net,
and after a simultaneous shrug and glance of
mutual encouragement, advanced, racquets in
hand, to greet their brother-in-law elect. At
the same moment Laybourne, too, advanced,
// ITH MERLIN. 95
from a nervous ambush in the apple-tree
walk, where he had instinctively fed his pre-
occupation with a few choice Ribston pippins,
and the three stood before Ormrod and
Juliet, before they knew that any one was
about.
Ormrod and Juliet too were standing ;
Juliet had drawn behind him, a little on one
side, to show him her favourite view of the
old red Rectory, glowing in the sun between
the orchard on one hand and a magnificent
large-leaved lime on the other, that was now
diorht in Autumn gold. She had one hand
on his arm, and with the other was pointing
to a particular dormer-window framed in
canariensis. It had been Ted's room, but
she did not tell him so, only specifying it as
now being her den. She imagined Ormrod
was looking where she pointed, but he was
not ; he was looking down at her, mischiev-
ously and tenderly, and she raised her eyes
suddenly and caught the" deception, but could
96 JULIET.
not be angry under such a look. It brought
a wave of colour to her face, and made her
eyes sparkle and drew a smile to her lips —
and at that opportune moment they both
became conscious of lookers-on, realizing
with a gasp that it was as well it happened
at that moment and not the next. As it
was, the incident sent her on, with the hap-
piest agitation about her that it was possible
lor a woman to wear, and made them realize
instantaneously that she was very much in
earnest in her preference. Of the five, Orm-
rod was the only one in possession of his
senses. He bowed, came forward, and held
out his hand to Laybourne.
"We do not meet as strangers," he said,
and they could not but feel that his bearing
was well-bred, his smile most winning.
Laybourne rose at once to the occasion,
responding with the courtesy which, when
exerted pointedly, was always the more
attractive in comparison with his habitual
WITH MERLIN. 9 7
easy-going hilarious boyishness, and they
went on together towards the house, leaving
Juliet to the tender mercies of Phil and
Carrie.
Carrie immediately threw herself on
her sister, kissing her emotionally, and say-
ing something Juliet did not catch, She
gently disentangled herself, but would have
taken no notice of the incoherent little speech,
had not Phil said bluntly :
" Hush, Car, don't ! "
"What was it?" she asked then; and
startled by the shamed look in one pair of
eyes, and the angry reproach in the other,
repeated her question authoritatively.
"Why shouldn't I, Phil; it was true,"
said Carrie, defiantly. " I only said he was
very presentable, Judy ; and he is, clear."
For a moment Juliet did not realize who
was meant ; when she did, she burst out
lauo-hino", and laughed until she almost cried.
This view of the case had- never struck her.
VOL. III. 7
98 JULIET.
She had, indeed, been so thoroughly ab-
sorbed in the mere facts of loving and being
loved that she had not given a thought to
home consternation and speculation, and had
forgotten that they associated Ormrod with a
carpenter's shop in a moorland village, and
knew nothing of him in the wide and critical
arenas of London drawing-rooms and art
coteries, as somewhat of a pet in Society and
a prophesied R.A. When she had finished
laughing, she kissed Carrie and put her arm
through Phil's.
11 This is delicious ! " she said. " My dear
child, you don't mean to say you go and
nurse at St. Bartholomew's, or have ever left
your mother's apron-strings ? Did you ex-
pect him to wear a paper-cap, and have his
apron twisted round his waist, and his
pockets full of sawdust ? My dear Car, you
don't do credit to your advantages ; you
might never have been away from Moorhead
yourself. And what did you expect, Phil —
WITH MERLIN. 99
a rustic boor ? Did you think we were a
Phyllis and Corydon ? Presentable ! Don't
you know what he painted for the Academy,
and how it was noticed and brought him into
notice ? Don't you know that he painted
Cyoeraeth ? "
"I must plead ignorance," Phil said, dryly.
" Pictures aren't in my way, though I might
have given some thought to one if I'd known
any particular reason why I should. But I
did not, and consequently my ignorance is
glaring. It isn't fair to descend on us in this
way, Judy, and expect us to be au fait in
matters beyond our province. When Car
goes to town she goes to nurse, and not to
gad about ; and as for me, I'm a practical
engineer, and so far haven't made a fool of
myself in any way."
11 I'm very glad to hear it. Neither have
I," Juliet said, gravely. It struck her that
there was an insinuation in the latter part of
this speech, and that she was treading un-
ioo JULIET.
warily on the edge of a volcano ; and this
made her thoughtful and inwardly angry.
They had crossed the lawn now, aird were
close upon the group at the front door, and
from its midst Mrs. Lavbourne came forward,
her sweet serene eyes misty with sudden
tears as they fell on Juliet, her eldest girl,
her best beloved and most faithfully prayed
for child, who was coming home to her now
under circumstances which, above all others,
make a mother's heart vibrate most wistfully.
She folded her arms round her almost pas-
sionately, and then they went indoors and
upstairs together, without the exchange of an
audible word.
"Tell me all about it; I have been so
taken by surprise," she said, when they were
in the room, through whose open window,
with the delicate flower gfems fluttering about
it, they could hear voices and laughter in the
garden below.
And Juliet did tell her a great deal more
WITH MERLIN. 101
than she had intended or thought to tell ; but
home, with its natural influences, and sym-
pathies, and spontaneous interest, had never
seemed to her so soothing and yet exacting
of confidence, as now, when the infinite possi-
bilities roused by the thought of a home of
her own, were entering her mind day by day.
The events of her life had transpired away
from her home, and thus it was, perhaps,
natural that she should have been chary of
associating this — the greatest — directly with
it and its people. Afterwards Mrs. Lay-
bourne held her with her hands on her
shoulders at arms' length.
" And you are very happy ? ' she asked.
"' I am very happy. No one else suited
me so well ; and no one is perfect, Mother."
" No," and she kissed her, without Juliet
seeing the slightly troubled look that stole
into her eyes. Mother-love felt that either
great love was not here or some great fault
was, when such an admission could act as
102 JULIET.
reminder against the unalloyed joy that hides
faults and heightens virtues at such a crisis,
as though through a golden mist.
Nothing, however, that transpired during
that short visit, gave countenance to either
misgiving. When Ormrod asked, the follow-
ing day, how long it would take him to reach
the station, he was urged on all sides to pro-
long his visit, Laybourne making the happy
suggestion that by so doing, he and Juliet
misdit travel together when she started in a
few days to join the Mompesson party at
Folkestone. Of course, such a suggestion
was not to be set aside lightly. Ormrod
glanced across the dinner-table at Juliet, and
read persuasion in the eager look that was
bent upon him ; and the invitation was known
by all to be accepted, before a word was said.
Ormrod certainly found Marshlands rather
dull, even with Juliet at his every beck and
call. Laybourne prosed him with reminis-
cences of Moorhead, and once made an un-
WITH ME RUN. 1 03
fortunate allusion to Molly, which sent the
sensitive blood flying distressfully to Juliet's
face, and made him carefully avert his eyes
from the dry observation of Phil, whose ob-
servation he found more trying than that of
all the others put together.
It was then that they heard incidentally
of Murdock's death, and Molly's proposed re-
moval to the Vicarage ; news which Ormrod
received with the remark that Molly was
born to be lucky, to which Juliet silently ac-
quiesced with more security than it had been
asserted, thanks to her knowledge of Brun-
skill's claims and intentions. To the others,
it did not seem that before this, she had had
any stroke of good luck.
Mrs. Laybourne was charming to Orm-
rod, as she was unvaryingly to all, though to
her watchful solicitude it sometimes seemed
that he was shallow, and a superficial thinker
— she could not draw him into conversation
or win any confidence from him. Indeed, he
io 4 JULIET.
evidently shrank from the familiar friendship
they had determined to extend to him, and
got on well with Carrie only. He was re-
lieved when Phil left — young men are keen
with young men, and especially if they con-
ceive a prejudice against them. Sophie, as
the married sister, was self-important and
disposed to be hoity-toity, her husband being
a Maxwell of Maxwelton ; but Carrie was a
nice little thing, who took matters as she
found them. He would have enjoyed a mild
flirtation with her, but that she was too
simple-minded and single-hearted, and mild-
ness in such a cause did not come naturally
to him ; yet he durst not venture upon more,
under the circumstances. But, on the whole,
the days passed very happily. He found
something to sketch in the church ; and
Juliet played softly on the organ, and sang
now and then in her fine voice, that flooded
the silence and left it vibrating to the music
of her innermost heart. In the afternoons
WITH MERLIN. 105
they had callers, and played lawn-tennis, and
sat out on the grass in the shade of the great
golden lime, drinking tea and chatting. It
was a new life to Ormrod, an antipodes both
to Moorhead and Coombe, that phase of
quiet medium life which is so distinctively
English in its cheerful uneventfulness, its re-
finement of domestic happiness, its exclusive
clerical element and general self-satisfaction.
" I could not endure it long, even with
you," he said to Juliet, one day.
" Nor I. I always feel it is only an
interlude ; but it is a peaceful one, of which
one can think longingly in the outside fret
and jar — and it is best for Home to be
peaceful."
When they went away, it was generally
felt that there was a great blank in the house.
Juliet had presented herself to them under a
new aspect ; and Ormrod had been interest-
ing, if only by comparison with former times.
There was no doubt they were happy.
106 JULIET.
" Nevertheless, he is not the right man
for her ; he makes her his conscience, and
depends on her too much, and she will tire.
It is far better the other way, like Arthur
and me," said Sophie astutely, with a shake
of her fair head.
CHAPTER IV.
" CHECK."
Naturally, when Ormrod started with Juliet
on her journey, he did not stop short of
Folkestone, and only left the party when the
bell ran £ to clear the boat. His last words
to her were an assurance of his faithful affec-
tion, and of his intention of following them to
Italy, so soon as the fulfilment of one or two
commissions allowed it. He would do all in
his power to accomplish this, whilst they
were still at Genoa. She stood on deck a
lono; time, watching: the coast line dwindle
and disappear, as the steamer ploughed its
way swiftly through the -heaving water, that
io8 JULIET.
danced and sparkled in the sunshine, and
slipped in shoals of flying silver flakes from
the paddles. In all probability she was leav-
ing Eneland for years. In her own mind
existed a vague intention of marrying before
the Mompessons returned, and inducing Orm-
rod to settle in Florence, or Rome ; but in spite
of this intention of lon^ absence, she had no
feeling but of perfect cheerfulness and content-
ment. The last month seemed to have healed
all wounds, and given her a sense of security
aeainst new ones. She knew that Ormrod
o
would be with her again as soon as possible,
and then meant that they should not again be
parted for longer than the chance exigencies
of his profession and travelling, made unavoid-
able. No presentiment of change or misfor-
tune, threw a shadow over her, as she stood,
her hands clasped, her eyes dilated and
vacant with the suefgestiveness of her far-
reaching thoughts. It seemed to her, with-
out her thinking of it, that her way was now
"CHECK." 109
plain before her, and that nothing could turn
her from it. She was resting from fret and
jar, and devoting herself to the alluring pro-
spects of the future.
At Paris, they were to stay a few days.
Mrs. Mompesson had been there once before,
years ago, in her early married life, when her
invalid husband wished to consult a crreat
physician, and she had made up her mind to
see the gay city again, under the altered con-
ditions of fifty years later ; and when she made
up her mind to a thing, she invariably accom-
plished it. Juliet was already thankful that
thev were not travelling w T ith the Ouins, for
Mrs Ouin, too, was in the habit of making
up her mind to a thing ; and as her will
generally clashed with Mrs. Mompesson's,
the effect was that of two do^s in one leash
puling different ways. In all probability
Mrs. Quin would have declined to stop at
Paris, having frankly given her opinion, that
if her mother would be so~ absurd as to travel
no JULIET.
at her age, she must make her way to a
certain place, and settle there decorously, an
opinion which had roused Mrs. Mompesson's
old spirit of contradictiousness, and made her
resolve to do her travelling in as jaunty a
style as possible. Thus, they stopped at
Paris, and drove about sight-seeing, and one
morning, when Juliet was walking along the
Rue St. Honore, bent on a little private
shopping, she felt a touch on her arm, and
turning, found Doctor Thorns beside her.
It did not seem strange to see him. He was
not at Coombe, he might as well be here as
anywhere else, haunting the libraries, and the
salons of one or two of the literary friends,
whom he seemed to have everywhere. Hut
as she stood, her hand in his, gathering her
thoughts together, it struck her that he was
greatly changed, and looked ill.
"Are you ill ?" she asked, impulsively.
He took no notice of her question.
" I saw you yesterday, going into the
"CHECK." in
Louvre, and the day before, at the Madeleine,
but I kept out of the way as you did not
come into mine. To-day, however, you do,
so that alters the case. Where are you
going ? " he said.
" Only to Framboissart's. I can go
another time."
He smiled involuntarily, but coldly.
" I don't want vou to walk with me. I
meant, where are you going on to from
Paris ? "
" To Genoa ; but I don't yet know whe-
ther by sea or rail."
" That does not. concern me either — your
route. I am remaining here indefinitely.
So you are not at once bound for Rome ? '
" Oh, no! Mrs. Mompesson is disposed
to enjoy herself and close Mrs. Quins lips
against derogatory remarks on her age, not
having yet reached the term when she will
be proud of it. I shall not wonder if we
winter partly in Florence.''
ii2 JULIET.
" I, too, shall be on the move this winter,
but not, I think, in Italy."
"You will do well to stay away from
Coombe."
" From Coombe, yes. It is so dull, I
suppose. The Hall empty until Spring, and
then never a^ain what it has been."
They had been walking on slowly :
but, as though alarmed by his own words,
he now suddenly stopped, with a keen,
sidelong glance a t her, and raised his
hat, ignoring, however, her outstretched
hand.
In another moment they had parted, his
lips refusing to utter a word, and she, stand-
in*^ still, heard the tap of his stick along the
pavement for some seconds after. His tacit
refusal to shake hands, had paralyzed her.
She looked into a shop window without
seeing anything in it, although it was the
jeweller's of whom she had been in search ;
and endeavoured to steady herself and over-
11 check: 1
ii3
come her unwarrantable dismay. If she were
the woman ever to have simply said, " Poor
man," of a discarded lover, and passed on her
way unheeding his pain, she would not at
least have said it now. His whole aspect,
that seemed in some unaccountable way
dimmed, had struck anguish into her soul.
She had turned from him ; he was turning
from her. Was she to marry at the sacri-
fice of life-long friendships ? She had often
wanted him above any other human being,
and she might again, in spite of her husband.
Would he not be forthcoming ? Had she
done a wicked thing in rejecting the love of
this good man, whose love God had certainly
willed to be hers ? Could she not have
loved him if she would ? Was it she who had
forced the iron into his heart and driven the
light from his face ? She was not angry or
impatient because he had clouded the day's
bright sunshine for her. That was a very
little thing now, when it struck her that
VOL. III. 8
ii4 ' JULIET.
she had clouded his life's sunshine. Would
Ormrod have worn this haggard look of
sadness had it been him to whom she
had said "No" — the comparison came to
her involuntarily; she could not dismiss
it without an answer, and that answer
was, He never would. It was true, clear as
daylight, that she had rejected the greater
gift.
Surely there was something radically
wrong in herself, when her discrimination and
free agency and common sense, could thus
desert her. She did not do her shopping
that day, but left the gay street and w< nt on
slowly until she came to a church, which she
entered. There she sat down on a prie-dieu,
and laid her head upon another in front of
her, and sat thinking in the dim liefht. across
which sunbeams slanted through jewelled
windows. When she presently got up and
came out a^ain into the garish day. she was
conscious of one ureat wish- that she might
" check:'
".5
meet the Doctor again, and implore him to
shake hands with her.
But she did not see him again. So long
as they stayed in Paris, he seemed to haunt
her. Often she turned, thinking she heard
his stick, or looked up, thinking she should
meet his eyes ; but she never did, though
she was certain he was not far away. The
night before they left, she had two letters by
the last post. One was from Ormrod, but
when she glanced at the other, she opened it
first. Its crabbed characters were not to be
mistaken, nor the scrap of paper within the
envelope — so thin and small, that at first she
thought the envelope was empty. She had it
in her hand in a moment, and was bending
with it to the light.
" Dear Juliet," it ran, — " I have a feeling
that I shall like to know you know where I
am to be found these next few months. 1
ghall always know where to find you. Thus,
n6 JULIET.
when I arrive at a new place, I will at
once post a note to you. That will be
sufficient.
" Yours faithfully, as ever,
" Humphrey Thoms."
She read these few words again and
again, fully conscious of a hidden intention in
them, but fearing to tell herself what it was.
Yet she knew it from the first moment, in
which it had seemed to clutch at her throat
and half strangle her. Evervthinof he had said
in the darkness of the glade at Coombe, came
back to her as vividly as though no happy time
of contented i^leanin^ had followed ; his in-
sinuation, which she had spurned ; his know-
ledge, that she had shrunk from, as interested
prejudice, and had made her as heart-sick as
a coward ; his question of the other day —
11 So you are not bound at oncv for Rome ? '
- — all crowded upon her now with over-
whelming 1 force, and made her dizzy. Why
"CHECK." 117
should he have spoken of Rome, but that
Ormrod had spent last winter there ? Was
there not something which Ormrod himself
had feared that she should know ? Why did
Doctor Thorns wish her to know where he
could be found if she wanted him ? If she
wanted him ! She saw clearly enough that
action was now vested wholly in her hands.
He would not again tell her that he wanted
her. What was done hereafter, must be done
by her. As she sat on the edge of her bed,
thinking, thinking, that little note crushed in
her hands, she felt that peace again had fled,
the way was not plain before her, there still
remained perplexity, difficulty, and calls for
hope and faith in a tottering cause.
Although she was thinking so acutely of
Ormrod, she had forgotten his letter, which
lay on the toilet table, as yet unopened. But
presently she remembered it and went and
opened it, reading it through with feverish
eagerness, then pressing it to her lips pas-
n8 JULIET.
sionately, as though in some part to atone
for her doubts.
11 God knows I never doubted you until
you gave me just cause ; nor ever -would,
but that you made me; nor ever will,
but that you make me ! ' she exclaimed,
incoherently, scarcely knowing what she
thought and said, so full was her heart, and
dizzy her head, and tremulous her lips.
Again she wanted comfort and support. But
had Ormrod been there, he could not have
comforted her ; he would not have under-
stood her, for there were fine feelings and
motives and aims in her, which he dimly felt,
and stood and worshipped afar off, and of
which, had she obtruded them too constantly
on his notice, he might have wearied, and
then pshawed as high-flown and uncom-
fortable. Neither had he any support for
her, but the practical proffer of an arm or
a hand. /Kolian harps are for the wind to
touch into music, not mortal fixigers ; and
"CHECK." 119
even so is it with some human hearts — no
touch, or word, or glance, can tune them to
their best attainments ; but there is an in-
tuition, silent and strong, in delicatest
sympathy, that sends spirit to spirit, and
draws forth harmony with a breath as of
heaven, where, but for it, harmony would
have lain for ever hidden from this world's
ken.
The following day they proceeded on
their journey. Mrs. Mompesson was in
inordinately high spirits and good health, and
had elected to go to Genoa by sea. Thus they
spent some ten hours in getting down to
Marseilles, and then had to wait half a day
for the boat. It was voted by all, a tiresome
journey ; even Mrs. Mompesson confessed
to it, on condition that they would not
divulge the mortifying fact to Mrs. Quin.
To add to it, they found the placid Mediter-
ranean in a fury. There had been a thunder-
storm, and the waves were still roaring, and
i2o JULIET.
clutched their steamer as though it were a
mere life-buoy, tossing it from crest to crest,
and washing its decks with rushing seas that
forced every one to go below. Every one
was ill except Mrs. Mompesson, who gloried
in her strength ; but, when morning broke,
Juliet managed to get on deck, and finding
comparative quiet in the elements, wrapped
herself in an oilskin, and sat down to watch
the shore and the gradual unfolding of one
of earth's fairest cities ; feeling vigour and
spirit return to her each minute, as the breeze
blew, and the sun rose red in a space of
saffron sky, whereon no cloudlet dared to
rioat, and kissed the sea into rippling sparkle
and glitter once more, and day threw off
the veil of dawn, and showed the gleaming
shore-line yield to Genoa Bay.
She was not the only one who meant to
see Genoa from the sea, as they ran before
the wind. Many of the passengers were
emerging from their berths, and Lily came
"CHECK." 121
up from below to join her. They both stood
against the gunwale, absorbed and silent, and
the shore grew clearer each moment ; the
terraced heights, with their trees and vine-
yards, lying close-pressed against the sky ;
the fair, white city, glistening in marble and
stone, falling from height to height, until it
seemed to slip into the sea ; the long, black
tongues of the moles, like giant arms thrown
out in guardianship ; the crowds of shipping
lying moored along the brown wharves, from
which, now and then, a felucca disentangled
itself, skimming like a bird with wing-like
dips of its bright lateen sails, into the open
bay that quivered with mother-o'-pearl tints,
and yielded silver to the dipping oars. Then,
as they drew nearer, they saw the wharves
were crowded with people ; there grew upon
their ears a babble of voices, shrill rather
than sweet, above which was a clamour of
bells, half seeming to come from heaven, as
they tinkled from the chapels on the heights ;
122 JULIET.
there was a rope thrown, a jar, a rush of
officials and hotel-agents and porters, and
they were at their journey's end.
" What will happen here V Juliet thought,
dryly, as she stepped on shore. At Folke-
stone she had thought that there was nothing
more to happen.
CHAPTER V.
MOSAICS.
"And how are they coming, Gran ?' !
" As we did ; and they may be here any
day, any hour. So we shall live in a state
of suspense, expecting the yacht from Naples
and their packet from Marseilles. Now, I
do so detest suspense, that I am feeling
quite cross. I wish we did not see the
quays from these rooms, for I know the
glass will never be out of my hands. I wish
you would ask Miss Laybourne to come here
a minute. Where is she ? '
"In her own room, reading her letters ;
and afterwards we are ^oinq; out. I am
i2 4 JULIET.
longing to go out. Don't keep her long,
Gran."
" It is only about these mosaics that I
want her at all ; so she can come when she
is dressed for your walk," said Mrs. Mom-
pesson.
Juliet's share of the day's mail was an
unusually interesting one, for, among other
letters, there was one from Doctor Thorns ;
the second she had received since their
arrival. He had written the first time from
Bordeaux, on his way to Dax, and now he
wrote from Dax. He had left Paris the
same day as they, actuated, she felt, by an
intolerable restlessness ; and his letter had
been something more than a mere bulletin
of arrival, leading her to hope that gradually
he would write at more length, and, though
distantly, with comparative freedom. Nor
was she disappointed.
This second letter was even diffuse, touch-
ing on many subjects, and covering many
MOSAICS, 125
scraps of paper. There was none of the old
racy humour, but there was more unreserve,
and she felt that not only was it a great
pleasure to her to receive it, but that it had
been a relief and solace to him to write it.
Nevertheless, the curious medley of scraps
and the crabbed characters, made her eyes
ache and confused her brain before she
reached the end. He did not say anything
about himself or his travels, but had gone
back two or three months to his visit to
Moorhead, and described it and his impres-
sions of Brunskill.
He had enjoyed himself, and his mental
and moral being had evidently experienced
a fillip by the very isolation of the place.
The moors had wrought upon him strongly.
He and Jules Gliddon had had frequent talks
over the old days at Caius ; he thought
Ursula Gliddon a stronger mixture of sound
sense and enthusiastic kindliness than ever ;
he and Brunskill had walked much together,
126 JULIET.
their quick friendliness had acquired piquancy
from the innocence of the Gliddons, and
he had heard from his own lips, the circum-
stances of his parents' deaths, which cer-
tainly, to so sensitive and loyal a mind, must
excuse his pertinacious secresy. Still he
thought, and always would, that the Mom-
pessons should have known the truth before
Isabel's marriage, for it was certain he would
marry, and then, by his own confession, they
must know. But he was not a man whom
it was easy to turn from a once-formed
purpose.
Lily rapped at her door just as she
finished this letter. But there was one from
Mrs. Lay bourne, too, and she tore it open
with Lily standing by the table, whereon
envelopes and paper were scattered in con-
fusion, She glanced down it, as Lily delivered
her message.
11 Gran wants you, please, Miss Laybourne.
She has got some mosaics sent from a shop.
MOSAICS. 127
and she wants you to help to choose a set
for Bel, but she says you can put on your
things first for our walk."
" Yes, directly," said Juliet, mechanically,
noting the weekly home items of news,
amonor which was the announcement of
Sophie's happy motherhood.
" And we have letters," Lily went on,
beating an excited tattoo on the table, " and
the yacht has left Naples, and Uncle Oliver
is at Marseilles, and they may come on by
the next packet — this morning's, you know.
And Gran has been ordering rooms in this
hotel for every one, and Uncle Oliver speaks
of our having- a villa on the hills for a month.
May we go down to the quays, Miss Lay-
bourne ? The packet will soon be due, and
they may be there — all of them, you know — "
with an arch persuasive emphasis, " and the
courier could go with us, could he not ? '
Juliet smiled, but did not answer. She
was ready now, but just as they left the
128 JULIET.
room her eyes fell on the little table with its
litter of letters. It would not do to leave
them about. Hastily collecting them, she
opened her desk, intending to put them all
in, but the thought struck her, that if they
went a quiet walk, it would be pleasant to
loiter and re-read them. So she took out
a larger fresh envelope, and pushing the
budget within, slipped it into her pocket, and
locking the door of her room, crossed the
corridor to their private sitting-room.
Mrs. Mompesson was sitting in the win-
dow, which was wide open. In the balcony
a deep crimson cactus glowed. The streets
below, were noisy with voices, steps, and
vehicles. Bevond the melee of roofs, there
was a reach of the silver sea, eflittering' in
the sun, lapping the bases of the quays and
moles, studded with ships and feluccas, and
vanishing into a hot mist of sky. This, Mrs.
Mompesson was eagerly scanning, with her
elbows propped on the arms of her chair,
MOSAICS. 129
and a fine marine binocular glass in her
hands. But when the door opened, she put
this down, and turned her attention to a
jeweller's box, wherein lay some exquisite
mosaics.
" You will have heard our news," she
said ; " I am so glad I ordered these, when
we were driving yesterday, for I want them
ready for Bel. Are they not lovely ? the
gold filigree so delicate ? What do you
think of these roses and convolvuli ? And I
should like this bracelet reserved for Caro-
line. Will you just write a line to the
jeweller, and tell him to reserve it, for a day
or two ? The man is waiting ; just a line on
anything, to slip into the box."
At that moment Lily came in.
" May we go down to the Quays ?" she
asked, eagerly.
"Ask Mrs. Mompesson while I write
this," said Juliet.
Mrs. Mompesson had" taken up the glass
VOL III. 9
T30 JULIET.
again, and was looking at a faint line of smoke
gradually emerging from the mist.
" There comes the Marseilles boat ; I
would give something to know if they are on
her," she said. " What, you want to go down
there, in all this heat and glare ? " she added,
as Lily urged her request ; " you must take
Carl, of course. I wish I could see the land-
ing-stage, I am certain I could distinguish
them."
Lily had rushed to the bell to summon
Carl, and then darted back to hurry Juliet,
who was writing in pencil, and wondering if
her Italian bore thus perpetuating. In her
haste, she had not troubled to open Mrs.
Mompesson's escritoire, but remembering
the clean envelope in her pocket, had emptied
it of its contents, and was writing on the out-
side. It was finished now, and she put it in
the box, as Carl appeared, followed by the
porter in charge of the mosaics. Gathering
up her letters, she ran across to her room
MOSAICS. 131
with them, and locked them in the desk.
Then they went downstairs, attended by
Carl, whose duty it was, to fall respectfully
behind, or clear the way, as necessity com-
pelled.
It was undeniably hot in the streets, as
they traversed one after another, and lost the
fresh air of the higher ground. The orange-
trees in their tubs, drooped, parched and
dusty. Here and there, dogs lay panting
with lolling tongues ; mules ambled drowsily,
scarcely affected by the sharp crack of their
drivers' whips ; they passed a door-step where
a girl sat asleep, her head thrown back
against the wall, her black hair dishevelled,
her black eyelashes sweeping her dusky
cheeks, and beside her a tambourine, that had
dropped from her nerveless hands ; then a
violin player, who with one ear laid affec-
tionately near the strings, might have been
thought asleep, too, but for the motion of his
right arm. A few English lionizers were the
1 32 JULIET.
only brisk elements in the scene, some were
studying their Baedekers, some reading
letters, some peering at the marble pillars
of a palace, some eating grapes in genuine
al fresco fashion, but all contrived to look
alive, and determined to let nothing escape
them. They were glad when they emerged
from the close streets on to the quays, and
faced the shimmering sea, with its drowsy
lap against the rocking craft of every descrip-
tion, though they found themselves in a
crowd of picturesque figures, sinewy-limbed
and swarthy, in tattered clothes and broad
sombrero hats. On all sides were shrill cries,
deep-voiced shouts from sailor to sailor, and
the babbling under-current of musical vowels.
Juliet made her way through the crowd, pro-
vokine remark on her erect bearing and calm
face, from a people whose languor hides
passions that can leap in a moment to self-
assertion ; Lily, with her fair loveliness, was
the object of their admiration. Preparations
MOSAICS. 133
for lashing the steamer were already being
made, and they pressed up to the balustrade
as it bore down towards them, with the water
flying in silver flakes from its paddles, and
then easing, worked slowly round, showing
them the crowded deck. As it touched the
quay, a man, leaning against the paddle-box,
raised himself, and came slowly aft. It was
Ormrod, and the next moment his eyes fell
on Lily, and travelled eagerly to Juliet. She
smiled at him, and he waved his hand. But
in the commotion of landing, he lost sight of
her, and when he presently reached Lily, she
had disappeared. He only waited to see
Lily into a carriage with the Quins, and then
drew Carl into his service, and started in hot
pursuit.
Juliet, however, had walked too quickly
to be overtaken, and was safe in her own room
when they reached the hotel. She was listen-
ing for their steps in the corridor, stand-
ing with a quickly-beating heart just within
'34 JULIET.
the door. They came that way, and were
talking.
" And the young ladies have been quite
well ? ' said Ormrod, in slightly halting
German.
" Yees, yees, quite veil, sare," Carl
answered, in halting English.
" That is veil," said Ormrod with a lau^h.
He was evidently in high spirits, and she
went to a chair and sat down, and wondered
why she had run away. She had certainly
had no intention of doing so, when she went
to the quay, calm in the prospect of soon
seeing him ; and when she had seen him, her
delight and happiness had been great. Then
the next moment, she was irresistibly impelled
to go, though she knew she was leaving him
in the lurch, and preparing deliberate dis-
appointment for him just when she had raised
his expectations to the probability of a loiter-
ing walk together. It was true, however,
that she had not expected they would come
MOSAICS. 135
that day, and that she was not prepared to
meet him. Since she had last seen him, the
evenness had left the tenour of her way,
and anxiety had generated a resolve for
decisive action, presenting to her mind two
alternatives : the one that of unhesitating
marriage as quickly as possible ; the other a
second challenge to him to be honest with
her, and confess to wrong-doing, if wrong-
doing there had been.
It was perfectly clear to her that she could
not go on labouring under suspense, uncer-
tainty, and suspicion. She must stop all that,
by resolute action in one of the two courses
open to her, and regulate her manner accord-
ingly, from the first moment of their meeting
again. When she saw him on the boat, she
had not made up her mind to either course
distinctively. Yet she was angry with herself
for her flight. He might think it coquetry,
and she could only stigmatize it as cowardly.
She sat calmly reviewing all that had trans-
136 JULIET.
pired, and the wheels within wheels now set
in motion, and when she at last rose, she had
resolved to take the course of unquestioning
faith and defiance, and to tell him that if she
were to marry him at all, it must be quickly.
Meanwhile, she must brace herself for the
unknown issues of such a step, by every means
at her command, and as a preliminary she
fell upon her knees and prayed.
That evening she w T as standing in the
window, watching the moon rise over the
sea, when Ormrod came up behind her.
It was their first opportunity for more than
an exchange of Greetings, and she moved to
one side, and leant against the casement,
looking at him, as he held her hand. It was
a long and wistful look, and she did not
speak, but presently turned to the window-
again, and together they silently saw a silver
track broaden across the water, until the
whole bay lay in mystic light. The moles
stretched out on either hand like black
MOSAICS. 137
tongues, and the shadowiness of the shore
was here and there pricked out with silver
white, as the light caught a villa, set among
olive and myrtle groves, or a martello-tower,
rising on an aloe-covered crag. Behind them,
Mrs. Mompesson and the Quins were dis-
cussing the villa project. Ormrod softly
threw up the window, and they stepped out
on to the balcony ; far down the street some
one was twanging" a guitar.
Before they came in again, they had
arranged to take a boat the next day, and to
be quietly alone for a talk. Juliet's resolve
having so far communicated itself to him,
that he felt matters were reaching the only
safe climax.
For thoughts of that to-morrow, Juliet
knew, when she reached her room, that it
was useless to try to sleep. She let down
her hair, and stood a long time, softly brush-
ing it, then went to the window, whose deep
embrasure had a cushioned seat, and sitting
138 JULIET.
down, rested her head against the cool glass.
She sat thus, an hour, and heard one bell
after another, toll midnight, a solemn sound,
that added to the calm of the sleeping city ;
but, in some indefinable way, increased her
restlessness. She found it impossible to
stem the tumultuous current of her thoughts,
or to control the strong affection that was
now on the point of setting risk and mis-
giving at defiance, and braving regret. She
tried again to pray, but it was mere mockery
to invoke God's help, when her mind was
made up, and full of human love, and hope,
and desire. Neither could she soothe her-
self by her old habits of self-examination,
and searching of the motives of her inmost
heart. The fervency of her thought became
exhausting and bewildering ; and at last she
lay down. But it was only to toss about,
seeking for rest, and finding none ; and over-
come by this unusual intolerable restlessness,
she got up again, and walked to and fro.
MOSAICS. 139
Suddenly, she remembered her letters of the
morning. She would re-read them.
She went to her desk, unlocked it, and
took out the hastily-collected budget, then
arranged the many sheets, and left Doctor
Thorns' for the last. When she got to this,
she read it more carefully than at first, and
to her surprise, found that one passage to
which she especially wished to refer, was now
conspicuous by its absence. She turned the
scraps over and over, arranged them sequen-
tially, and numbered them, with the certain
result of one being missing, and that, the one
which — so far as she could remember —
named \Brunskill directly, in connection with
the Mompessons, and drew a comparison
between the Mompessons and the Gilberts,
in terms derogatory to the former. An un-
comfortable feeling came over her, that she
must have dropped that piece of paper some-
where. She searched through her desk,
turned out the pocket of her morning-dress,
14° JULIET.
and examined every part of the room. But
in vain. Nowhere was there a trace of
another effort of that crabbed caligraphy, and
the more certain this became, the more in-
delibly were the words it perpetuated, branded
on her memory. There was no doubt that
this one scrap was of vital importance, and
might lead to a full discovery of the secret,
Brunskill wished so tenaciously to keep from
his relations ; and now she felt that it might
be lying somewhere where either Mrs. Mom-
pesson or Mrs. Quin was as likely to chance
upon it as herself. She would have gone at
once to search the sitting-room, but that Mrs.
Mompesson's room opened from it, and she
would probably be overheard. She opened
her door, and ventured into the corridor,
lamp in hand ; but scarcely had she done so,
than another door opened further down, and
a gentleman came out, equipped for an early
journey. She knew that a porter would be
coming up for his luggage, and also, that it
MOSAICS. 141
was now eettinor to an hour when she would
be liable to such interruptions, so she gave
up her idea of searching there, consoling her-
self by the chance of a draught of air having
carried it into a corner, or under the fringe of
a mat. Her own affairs dwindled in impor-
tance before this unexpected anxiety, and
she became absorbed in speculations as to
the consequences that would ensue, if Mrs.
Mompesson, or Mrs. Quin, were to find and
read that half page. So far as she could
remember, it would only be likely to be-
wilder any one uninitiated, beyond the per-
sonality of the names , but in a person with
the slightest clue, would rouse suspicions
closely bordering on the truth. Not for the
world would she have had discovery happen
through her carelessness. Eve-like, she
blamed Doctor Thorns, for his habit of using
such odds and ends of paper, as it was almost
impossible to keep together.
About three o'clock, -she lay down again
1 42 JULIET.
and fell asleep, being awoke at seven by the
thudding of some waggons, laden with build-
ine stone, over the lava-slabbed street. Her
head and eyes ached violently ; but she
bathed them in cold water, put on her dress-
ing-gown, and went to the sitting-room.
There her search was equally futile, and then
she tried to persuade herself that there was
no cause for all this anxiety, that those words
had only existed in her imagination, or must
have escaped into her pocket, and thence
with her handkerchief, perhaps, on the
Molo, where the breeze would instantly
w T hirl them away, never again to be seen by
mortal eyes. But Ormrod was not the only
one at breakfast who noticed a change in
her, though he was the only one from whom
she endeavoured to hide it, lest he should
misconstrue it into something not encourag-
ing to the course of action she had insinuated
the previous night, and was now again fever-
ishly anxious to have frankly determined.
MOSAICS. 143
Yet, in spite of this preoccupied anxiety,
she avoided him during the next hour. He
could not catch her eye ; she scarcely opened
her lips during the time devoted to letters
and papers, and he did not know that this
was the first occasion on which she had not
then withdrawn to her own room ; she moved
about the room restlessly, taking up work,
and opening books, and fingering everything
upon a table where she and Lily had some
sketches and colour-boxes ; and she vouch-
safed him no glance of mutual congratulation
when Quin presently disposed of himself by
going down to the Quays. Mrs. Mompesson
had asked Mrs. Ouin to drive with her to
the Via Soziglia, at the same time display-
ing the mosaics she had purchased for Isabel.
Mrs. Quin did not approve of them. Rome
w T as the place for mosaics, and here the Via
d'Orefici should be patronized for the pale
pink coral or silver filigree that were special-
ties in Genoese workmanship. So they de-
i 4 4 [ULIET.
termined to go there and choose a bracelet ;
but must drive to Via Soziglia tco, to relieve
the tradesman from the reserve placed upon
a mosaic. In this shopping expedition, Mrs.
Mompesson insisted on including Lily, and
all the more imperiously, because Mrs. Ouin,
with her usual amiability, peremptorily de-
sired that Lily should remain with her
governess. In her opinion it was preposter-
ous that a governess should be accommo-
dated with leisure for love-making ; but Mrs.
Mompesson delighted in love-making, had
prophesied that Ormrod would make success-
ful advances to Juliet, and was delighted that
her prophecy had been fulfilled beyond her
highest expectations. Ormrod, who had
been out smoking a cigar, returned as the
three ladies descended, and, after seeing
them into the carriage, bounded upstairs
three steps at a time, and closed the door
upon himself and Juliet.
He went across the room to where she
MOSAICS. 145
was standing, looking" desultorily through a
newspaper, and he had in his hand a bunch
of Banksia roses, on which some drops of
dew still lingered. Detaching one or two,
he deftly placed them at her throat, then
stepped back to see the effect.
"Juliet," he said, "next year your por-
trait shall be in the Academy, and I will
paint you in that pale pink gown, and there
shall not be an ornament about you, save and
except those roses. When we are married,
dear, I will never have you in anything but
pale colours, before you are forty. Now go
and put on your hat, and if it has any arti-
ficialities in it, take them out, and I'll put in
these other roses. They suit you to a T,
and I'm proud of you now as ever, outwardly
as well as inwardly."
" What spirits you are in," she said, with
a smile; but it was pleasant to be com-
manded, and she instantly obeyed,
Within half-an-hour they, too, were down
VOL. HI. I0
146 JULIET.
on the Quays, and he was employing her to
charter a boat. Some dexterity was needed
to steer clear of the craft of every description
that filled the harbour ; but, once out in the
open bay, Ormrod drew up his oars and
leant forward on them for a good talk. It
was soon clear to both, that their intentions
and wishes were synonymous ; but, while he
was almost boyishly light-hearted, she was
calm, and more matter-of-fact than she had
ever imagined she could be, at such a crisis.
At first she endeavoured to throw off this ex-
traordinary tranquillity, fearing it would chill
and repress him, just when he had the most
right to expect the frankest responsiveness ;
but, seeing that he did not notice it, she gave
up the attempt, and sat listening and looking,
in what seemed to herself a dream. Was it
possible that she had agreed to be his wife
at the end of three months from that day,
and not only agreed, but anticipated the
request ; throwing] into the anticipation, a
MOSAICS. 147
feverish anxiety and resolution, that outraged
herself and all her preconceived, tenderly
cherished ideas, of the eternal fitness of
womanly modesty and reserve ? Assuredly
something had robbed the old, time-hon-
oured, yet ever new, situation, of its sacred
olamour. This was not what she had dreamt
of when the supreme moment should come,
in which he who was to be her nearest and
dearest upon earth, and whose unfailing help-
mate she hoped to be, asked her to tell him
when she would be his wife. " My happy
wife" he had said ; and she had not smiled,
or blushed, or looked away for one little all-
dazzled minute. There had been no sudden
tremble, no tumult of joy in her heart, but a
relief and practical decision that was hard
and that appalled her. She had looked at
him unwaveringly, with a measured look that
was not scrutiny, but equally was not con-
fidence — that was not unhappiness, but was
far from joy. There was ho spontaneousness
148 JULIET.
about her, no frank surrender, no sense of
having attained all her heart could wish for,
and being satisfied. And as she looked, she
wondered if she loved him. Was this love
that kept her pale and calm, and seemed to
be straining her to some grand effort, not of
self-control, but rather of sympathy. She sat
still, her eyes fixed upon him in an anguish
of feeling which she was powerless to define,
but which gradually seemed to want to ex-
press itself in words. Suddenly she leant
forward, placing one hand on his, and her
eyes widened with tears.
" I pity you !" she said.
Ormrod was undeniably startled. He
had perceived by this that she was exceed-
ingly quiet, and had a distressed air, and he
was on the point of asking her if she did
not feel well. Such a sentiment was the
last thing he had expected, and he looked
amazed.
" Why on earth should you ? ' he said,
MOSAICS. 149
in a tone of pique ; " that is not much to the
purpose, Juliet. If you were to congratulate
me, now, you should see I would forgive the
conceit."
" Congratulate you, no. I don't know
how it is, I never knew it before, but it is
very true, I believe ; don't despise it, Noll.
Perhaps, after all, it is the best I , still it
cannot be. Oh, Noll, if I had not loved you,
if I had not hoped to marry you, I never
could have let you kiss me. I always vowed
I never would be kissed but by the man who
was to be my husband. Then how is it ? I
ought not to be saying / pity you, yet it felt
so true ? "
" My dear Juliet, it must be the heat ; you
are overdone. I have done wrong to bring
you out here ; of course, it is different to our
Northern Octobers. Keep quiet, and don't
torture yourself by thinking. Besides, you
are all at sea, I don't need your pity.
You meant something "very different— you
150 JULIET.
meant to say, / love you ; now didn't
you ?
He was slowly paddling with one oar, to
carry the boat round for the shore, but was
regarding" her with a caressing smile ; and
after a moment she smiled back. His heart
bounded at that smile. He had really been
seriously alarmed for a minute, and it had
flashed into his mind that she was liorht-
headed. The idea was so preposterous, more
than ordinarily of the uncomfortable type in
which she sometimes indulged — unconscious*
he was certain, how uncomfortable they were.
What the deuce was he to be pitied for ? he
was one of the luckiest and happiest of men.
Such a remark was a delusion and a snare,
perplexing to him and tempting her most
naturally, to tears. He could not endure to
see tears in her eyes, and he wished, rather
uneasily, that that answering smile of hers,
had not been so ineffably sweet. He could
have vowed that his voice would have failed
MOSAICS. 151
him, had he the next moment, tried to speak.
She was a peerless woman, but such smiles
were risky things. It did not do for a man
to weep, especially when there was nothing
to weep for, as in the present instance. And
she had really given him a fright, his heart
had leapt into his mouth, he had thought for
a second, just one second of time, that she
was going to break faith with him, had
trapped and deceived him. Whereas the
truth, of course, was, that she had been
deceived, or rather had deceived herself, by
some morbid wretched scruple. He believed
some women dallied most pertinaciously
over scruples of conscience when they were
happiest ; made a point of it, in fact, as a
set-off against too much security. One thing
was certain, Juliet must not be morbid, or she
would spoil herself wickedly.
" My dearest," he said, softly, " remember
what we settled at Coombe. We might live
very quietly hereabouts for a year or two — -
152 JULIET.
only for a year or two, you know, and then
launch out. If you have any trouble on your
mind now, you must tell me at once. I
could not bear to think you ever cried when
I was not by. There is no earthly reason
why you should, dear. We love each other.
All is going well."
"It was not that," she said — "not
that at all. Neither could I make vou
understand. I scarcely know myself, but
things come over one unexpectedly some-
times."
She did not tell him what it was that
had come over her and paralyzed her — the
thought that in making her happy, he might
be making another woman miserable, whom,
but for her. he might have loved and made
happy, even happier than she had thought to
be. Juliet knew well that such things as two
women loving one man, did happen in this
world ; and she was not one calmly to accept
her fate, if the lot fell upon her, without a
MOSAICS. 153
thought of regret or pain for her on whom it
had not fallen. The idea was perfectly just
in her opinion, that though she might love
well, the other might love better, and thus
suffer more from failure than she would have
done. She was a woman capable of finding
comfort in her own disappointments, by re-
flecting that another had escaped them in
her stead. What she pitied in Ormrod, was
the weakness that led him to cause misery,
where moral strength would have reaped
honour and a good credit. She set down
her sudden impulse to honesty, entirely to
overwrought feeling, and was thankful to
have escaped the mistake of attributing it to
a more serious cause. Presently when he
saw that she really looked better, he allowed
the boat to drift again, and after carefully
arranging the cushions to give her greater
ease of posture, fell back into conversation,
being sincerely wishful to re-assure her, with-
out appearing to see that she had needed it.
154 JULIET.
There was still much that he wished to say
to her, and this was a golden opportunity,
unlikely to occur often, since he had now-
received a double impetus to work, and she
was not often thus at liberty. He wished to
impress fully upon her mind, the great fact of
his love being entirely hers. The word flirt
was never named between them, but he knew
she knew he was a flirt, and he wished her to
understand, beyond all possibility of mistake,
that she was the one woman with whom he
had never flirted, for the simple reason that
he loved her, and always would. What affairs,
outside of this, she heard of in the past, or
future, she must receive and consider as
mere peccadilloes. It was not unnatural
that such a man should fall into the immense
error of considering, that where his real love
was bestowed, it would be deemed a price-
less gift, to be the more valued in propor-
tion to the number of those who had not
won it.
MOSAICS. 155
And while his thoughts took this bent,
hers took another. She was thinking, with
passionate, noble intention, what the hidden
life of their home should be — that life which
assuredly it is a woman's highest privilege to
influence and adorn ; how it must be free
from sordid aims and selfish desires and
uncharitableness, and be sanctified by high
endeavour and single-minded purpose. She
was praying for grace to live up to her
ideal.
Slowly they drifted back, loth to leave
the lovely sea plains for the busy haunts of
men, the noisy quays and stifling streets.
" We will go up the Ouesia Valley next
time, and set our affections on a villa some-
where, since you have converted me to your
wishes," he said, as he helped her out of the
boat.
They went along the crowded wharves.
Suddenly the throng of people opened, and
they saw Quin coming towards them. He
i56
JULIET.
raised his hand to arrest their attention.
He looked hurried, eager, and anxious.
" Miss Laybourne," he said, 4< I must
speak to you. Go on, Ormrod."
/T*
rV/<<**».
CHAPTER VI.
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE ?
>>
Ormrod went on, and Juliet waited with
Quin, who stood still, and taking a pocket-
book from his breast pocket, opened it, and
passed her a piece of paper, covered with
small writing. She recognized it instantly.
''Where did you find it?' she asked,
breathlessly.
" Then you know it ? It is yours. I wish
to God I had found it, then it would not have
fallen into Gran's hands "
" She found it then ? Where ? I searched
all over, everywhere I could think of."
14 She did not find it. it seems you wrote
158 JULIET.
to a jeweller yesterday on the outside of an
envelope. They went to Via Soziglia an
hour or two ago, and he had found this in-
side the envelope. He gave it to Gran, and
she, of course, read it, having no idea to
whom it could belong. Then she identified
the handwriting, and Lily said you had heard
from the Doctor, and we concluded it must
be yours. Does it mean anything or not ?
I am annoyed that Thorns and you should
be discussing the Mompessons versus the
Gilberts in a letter, and that, apparently in
connection with a third person going under
the initial of B. If you know so much of
my wife's family history as to have some
clue to the whereabouts of her brother
Richard, pray explain all as quickly as pos-
sible. Let us walk on. Thev are naturally
in great suspense and trouble."
He was stirred beyond anything but
sharp impatience. His leisurely air had
deserted him for explicit coherency, which
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE ? " 159
demanded reciprocal coherency, and delivered
itself in unnatural jerks. Juliet knew that it
was only the pressure of an immense effort,
that gave him power to speak at all. His
voice was husky, and he looked straight ahead
as he walked, edging his way instinctively.
" I can give you his address, that you
may communicate with him."
" His address ? Then he is living ?'
" Not Richard Mompesson, but '
" But what ?" he asked, turning and look-
ing straight at her, as she hesitated, realizing
the greatness of the blow in store for him ;
for it had struck her that he had felt secure
of Richard Mompesson's death in spite of
his question.
" His son is living," she said.
" Good God ! " he said, under his breath ;
" and does he know all that he can claim ?
He cannot, or — why did we not know this
before Bel's marriage ? ' he added, fiercely.
" Because he does know his rights, and
i6d JULIET.
will claim nothing yet, if ever. Coombe he
will never claim, either for himself or his
children, supposing he marry. ' ;
Ouin breathed a deep sigh of relief, but
was still possessed by doubts.
" You speak confidently, Miss Laybourne,
with more authority than you would, were
you merely repeating the assurances of a
man whom you did not know. Do you know
this man ? "
" Yes, and so do you, both personally and
by correspondence. He is the Moorhead
schoolmaster, under whom you placed Mr.
Ormrod. ,>
He stopped and stared at her.
"Impossible!' he said, with a nervous
laugh.
" It is true. Gilbert Brunskill, so-called,
is your nephew as much as Henry Mom-
pesson was, before he became your son-in-law. *
" And how long have you known this ?
And why did not we know ? "
" WILL YOU BE MY W1FEV c6i
" I have known nearly a year, and sus-
pected it much longer. I found it out by
chance, the main fact ; but know no more, ex-
cept the coincidences and accidents and con-
clusions by which I arrived at my knowledge."
They had reached the hotel now, and, in
going upstairs, he asked if it had been she
who told the Doctor.
" Yes, under circumstances of discovery
on his part which more than excused the
confidence. He went to Moorhead, and
made every effort to induce Mr. Brunskill
to be candid with you, in the face of Isabel's
marriage, But Mr. Brunskill is not a man
to be turned from his purposes, and saw no
occasion to yield for your sake ; since if he
ever took steps to substantiate his claims,
they would tend rather to add to your peace
of mind, than otherwise. He will be content
with less than Coombe."
" He must be mad ; what Quixotic fancy
influences him ? "
VOL III. II
r62 JULIET.
" Simply that, I believe, of loyalty to his
mother's memory. He resented the thought
of connecting himself with those who had
resented the fact of her marriage."
" Utopian ! ' said Quin, dryly, and she
assented, feeling, nevertheless, that such
Utopianism would not pass him, unappre-
ciated.
He did not ask her to go in to Mrs.
Mompesson's room, but requested her to
write out two telegrams for his approbation,
the one to Brunskill summoning him to come
at once and to bring with him what papers
in proof of identity he might possess, the
other to Doctor Thorns. Juliet naturally won-
dered why he should want the Doctor, and
the singularity of such a suggestion struck
him, too, when reflected on her expressive
face.
" He will be a support to the other," he
said, leaving her.
Juliet smiled to herself; Brunskill was
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 163
not the kind of man to require extraneous
support at any juncture ; she could not
imagine him losing either calmness or self-
possession, let alone nerve. She knew
exactly how he would come ; with perfect
coolness and quietude, even-voiced, courteous
and observant, carrying conviction to his
sharpest deteriorators without apparently a
thought to the necessity for conviction, or to
any proof beyond his word and presence ;
assuredly they would have no need for shame
of him ; and she anticipated the situation,
with the keen enjoyment of a mind capable
of appreciating the dramatic touches of
life.
As Quin disappeared into the sitting-room,
a door higher in the corridor opened, and
Ormrod sallied forth, very evidently devoured
with curiosity and speculation.
"What is up?" he asked, in cautious
tones, as she held up a warning finger ; " I
got home before you, and found Mrs. Mom-
164 JULIET.
pesson hysterical, and incessantly calling for
you, and yet you have not gone to her."
" I can't tell you anything," she returned,
" only there are more important affairs in the
world than even yours and mine. Have you
seen Lily ? "
" No. Is it the yacht — collision, smash-
up, watery death, et cetera ? '
" Nothine of the kind. You would never
guess ; don't be inquisitive ;" and she passed
on to her own room.
Lily was there, sitting coiled up in the
window-seat. She had seen and heard all
that passed, none the less painfully because
she was not a girl to show what she felt or
suffered, except by perfect silence ; and was
now in a state of intolerable suspense. Juliet
sat down, and in mercy told her all she knew,
representing it in as cheerful a light as pos-
sible, and reassuring her on the vital point of
her brother's interests. They had not talked
Ion '\ however, before Sibbert came for her.
'• WILL YOU BE MY WIFEV 165
She was to go to Mrs. Mompesson, and en-
deavour to soothe her. This was a very old
story, with the simple difference that there
was now every excuse for hysterical excita-
bility. Quin was going to the office to des-
patch the telegrams himself, and Mrs. Quin
had lapsed into a stony silence, which must
exhaust itself. The jalousies were closed,
and Juliet could not at first distinguish any-
thing in the dim room. Mrs. Mompesson
was on the couch, still wearing her driving
things, which they had not been able to
induce her to have taken off; her bonnet-
strings were untied and thrown back over
her shoulders, and her cloak w r as loosened
and awry. She was fanning herself, and
held a bottle of salts in the other hand. A
handkerchief on her knees was steeped in
tears. She no sooner saw Juliet than she
dropped the fan, and, holding out both hands w
exclaimed sharply :
" So you have known Richard's son all
1 66 JULIET.
your life, and never told me. You minx !
Do you think I shall ever forgive you ? '
Then she laughed and nodded her head,
and her hands dropping into her lap. she
felt the damp handkerchief. Taking it up,
she threw it into a corner, with the action of
a petulant child.
" Wet tiling ! " she said ; " Sibbert, bringf
another. No, I shan't want it. I am not
going to cry again, there's nothing to cry
about. Have I not heard of Richard, my
darling boy ? He may be dead, but he left
a son — he left a son," with a gleeful lauo-h
and another knowing nod. " He left a son,"
she again repeated. "What will Henry say
to that ? — Henry and his bride, ha ! ha ! Eh,
Caroline ? Oliver says he doesn't want
Coombe ; all cant and humbug ! He shan't
be asked if he wants it — it is his, he shall
have it ; don't speak, Caroline, not one word.
Let there be no attempt at defrauding him of
his rights. Nothing of that kind would stand
11 WILL YOU BE MY WIFE ?" 167
in a court of law; there's the entail; Henry's
a mere interloper, and I always knew it,
always. I wonder at you, Caroline, with
your caution, letting your daughter link her-
self to such a risk." Then her tone changed
from triumphant maliciousness to sharp re-
sentment, and she fixed her eyes on Juliet,
who had sat quietly down by her, " So you've
had my affairs in your keeping, Miss Lay-
bourne ! do you know, I call that arrant im-
pertinence on your part ? "
" I do not wonder," Juliet said in her clear,
low voice ; " but one must regard the wishes of
others more loyally than one's own. You will
soon know all now, and see Mr. Brunskill."
" Who is he like ? His mother ? '
" Yes, most like his mother's family ; a
handsome man, of whom you will be justly
proud."
"It's a pity Bel married Henry," said
Mrs. Mompesson, in a confidential whisper,
meant, nevertheless, to reach Mrs. Ouin.
168 JULIET.
" Not at all, unless you are wishing
the wed diner to come over again. She
never would have married any one else."
" She's a fool ! ' was the retort, and her
lips snapped.
Juliet had taken her hands, and was ten-
der! v stroking: them ; an action which from
her, always acted mesmerically upon this
excitable mind that had expended its best
vitality in useless struggles for its own way
and will, against all obstacles of God and
man. She was a sad enough sight now.
defrauded of the natural right of her vears,
to untroubled tranquillity, with a bewildered
look on her face, as though the problem kA
life and the world, had driven her into a
corner at last and been too much for her.
The jaunty imperiousness of the? past few
weeks had vanished, dropped ofl her like a
veil ; she was haggard and withered and
shrivelled. Her eyes glittered feverishly,
gleaming every now and then on Mrs. Quin
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE1" 169
in a malice such as is horrid in old a^e,
but generally wandering vaguely, hither and
thither. Suddenly they were again suffused
with tears, and, leaning back, she buried her
face in the cushions and sobbed unre-
strainedly, as though she must either cry or
choke.
" Ah ! ' she said presently, in a hoarse
whisper, " you don't know how I sinned,
how domineering and hard I was. But I
have been punished ; all these years remorse
has gnawed me. God knows how I've
been punished to the uttermost, for He did
it. ' Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith
the Lord.' When can they be here ? If
we'd stayed at Coombe, he could have come
to-day. Sibbert, open the jalousies, never
mind the heat. Caroline, why don't you
soeak ? What's the use of sitting there like
a block ? You'd better go away."
To the surprise of them all, Mrs. Ouin
rose. Sibbert had opened the jalousies, and
170 JULIET.
the light seemed to dazzle her. She got up
slowly, and stood a moment gathering the
sweeping drapery she always wore, in part
over one arm. She was perfectly calm, pale,
and tearless ; but there was a look on her
face of intense passion, distorting in its re-
pression. As she moved, her fan, that had
become entangled in the fringe of her mantle,
loosened and fell. Juliet went forward, and
picked it up, holding it out to her ; but,
instead of taking it, Mrs. Ouin suddenlv
raised her hand and struck Juliet a sharp,
stinging blow, without change of expression
or attitude. The fan dropped again, and lay
this time where it dropped. Mrs. Quin
walked over it, and Juliet stood transfixed,
w T ith tino^lincr finders and burning foce. She
watched the door close, before she found
power to move. Then Sibbert came up,
officiously.
" She's mad/' she said ; "don't lay aught
by it, miss ? "
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE .?" 17 r
" Poor woman ! " Juliet said softly, look-
ing down at her hand. " I daresay it would
be a relief. She is overwhelmed."
This was a merciful construction to put
upon such an act by such a woman. There
could be no doubt that Mrs. Quin was over-
whelmed ; but they all were. In each, how-
ever, it took a different form, making Mrs.
Mompesson hysterically garrulous, and gene-
rating in her an extraordinary spitefulness
against the innocent, upon whom her sin
seemed likely to fall most heavily. She
seemed to think there was a conspiracy
against Richard's son, a man whom she had
never seen, and against whom she might
take one of the violent prejudices common
to an ill-balanced, impulsive character ; and
that every one would do all in their power to
defraud him of his rights. She never for a
moment doubted that he was Richard's son
— none of them did that ; Ouin's closest
questioning of Juliet stamped the affair more
172 JULIET.
and more forcibly with the calmness of simple
facts, and her tendency being invariably that
of subserviency to the ruling- powers, she at
once arrayed herself on the side of the grand-
son who was a stranger to her, to the dis-
paragement of others whom she had known
all their lives. It was a long time before
Juliet could soothe her sufficiently to per-
suade her to be undressed and go to bed.
She talked incessantly, without realizing
what she said.
" There are those mosaics for Bel," she
said once ; " she must be satisfied with them.
I am elad I £0t them. She can't have every-
thing ; " as though the possession of a set of
mosaic trinkets, secured Isabel from want or
poverty for the rest of her life. " Henry
must choose a farm where they can live.
Perhaps he may be Richard's agent, or bailiff,
or something 1 . Poor Caroline!' she said,
and laughed again. The only amusing aspect
of the case, in her opinion, was that in which
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE ?" 173
Mrs. Ouin figured ; whereas in Juliet's that
was the most tragic.
Juliet encouraged her to talk, did not
perplex her more, by correcting her when she
went wrone in Christian names, and grradu-
ally contrived to make her realize the sort
of man Brunskill was. But it was impos-
sible that she should sleep before she was
wearied out ; and equally impossible that
this should not presently occur.
The others were totally different. Mrs.
Ouin had scarcely yet spoken a word ; Ouin
was restless, subdued, and filled with yearn-
ing thoughts of yet unconscious Isabel ; Lily
was simply bewildered. Juliet moved among
them all, as a sort of mediator to whom they
could refer for the information and corrobo-
ration which became hourly more confusing,
as they realized the manner of man Brunskill
must be ; and Ouin ransacked his memory
for the various incidents of their conversa-
tions and correspondence' over Ormrod. Of
174 JULIET.
course, he had treated him indifferently and
cavalierly, merely as a village schoolmaster ;
and that he should all the time have pos-
sessed such an advantage over him as know-
ledge — apart from circumstances — gave, was
amazing to the point of exasperation. He
could not help laughing ; but he was also
angry. These two phases of his mood,
however, were only on the surface, and hid
a tide of feeling too deep for anything but
silence and reflection. Great issues were at
stake. He would not have cared had they
been likely to affect himself. But they were
not ; they were to affect one nearer and
dearer than even himself; and, however brave
Bel might be, it would be a trial to see this
interloper take her husband's place and push
them into the background. He could not
believe Juliet's assertion that Brunskill would
not want Coombe. Such a thing was against
human nature. And yet how much, also,
against human nature in its ordinary aspect,
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 175
had been his long and determined reserve,
not now penetrated by his own act, but by
chance ! Quin found it impossible to realize
that this man, whom he had heretofore met
in the midst of village children in a comfort-
less schoolroom, was his nephew, and heir to
the great Coombe property. He felt humili-
ated when he thought of it, not because his
orders and advice must have been considered
through the medium of thin and piquant sar-
casm, but because such unobtrusive content-
ment with unobtrusive circumstances clearly
pointed to something above the ordinary
type of his fellow-creatures and himself.
Juliet seemed to fathom all this. She could
sympathize most fully with Quin ; his view
of the emergency was the least self-interested
and the most unembittered, and he was rea-
sonable, and shirked nothing.
11 Don't you think it very extraordinary?"
he said once, when he glanced from behind
Galignani and found himself alone with her.
176 JULIET.
" Doesn't it seem amazing, even to you, that
he should have been content to bury himself
and claim nothing ? '
" No, it is not extraordinary to me,"
Juliet said. " I knew him years ago, and
always had an intuition that he was more
than he seemed to be, and also one of
the finest men I should ever meet. It was
only intuition then ; now it is knowledge.
He has all his life, from a mere boy, been
influenced by two passions — if one can call
anything in him a passion ; he is too calm,
and resolved, and self-reliant for so unruly a
word. In the first place, he idolized his
mother ; in the second place, he idolizes the
only woman he would marry, and all the
more because she did not think of him, and
has had troubles, and has exercised his pati-
ence. He has been content to be near her
all these years, first believing, then despair-
ing, then hoping. If she had rewarded all
this faith, and patience, and loyal friendship,
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 177
he would, for her sake, have made himself
known to you and claimed part of his own.
That part would be the Dower-house ; it
never will be Coombe. Had he wanted
Coombe, nothing would have deterred him
from taking it fifteen years ago, or more. I
don't wonder that you can't understand him.
He is unusual, is he not ?"
14 And this orirl. What will she do
now r
" I think I know what he will do," Juliet
said.
" Ah ! do you ? It seems to me he has
thought of himself before us."
" I think there must have been some
misfortune connected with his mother's life,
that he should have shunned you. He has
shunned you all, perhaps, where a different
man might have worked avengefully. But
you will soon know more than I."
" Supposing he should not come ? '
11 Oh, he will. His own affairs were near-
VOL. III. 12
178 JULIET.
ing a climax ; he would soon have been
marrying, and that under his own name."
" And what is his taste in a wife ? '
" She is a dales-girl, her father was a
farmer, her mother a curate's daughter. She
has lived with her uncle at Alderdale Grange,
but he is now dead, and Miss Gliddon has
taken her to the Vicarage. He fell in love
with her when she was really a mere child ;
then she was his pupil, and will certainly end
by being his wife. She is likely to be a very
happy woman, and he will never choose a
position above what she could well adorn.
She and the Dower-house will adorn each
other."
" I must say all this sounds more consis-
tent with reason, than any, but himself, would
exemplify."
" You will not be sarcastic, when vou are
face to face with him."
" I am not sarcastic now. but so much
sense in one man, takes one's breath. He
"WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 179
evidently feels that power to will and to do,
not only with his property but his principles,,
lies in a nutshell, and that is not what every
one does," said Ouin.
Meanwhile, Brunskill had got the tele-
gram, though, in consequence of the regular
telegraph service not being organized beyond
Newbridge, it reached him some hours later
than it might otherwise have done. He was
in school, and standing before the black-
board for a geography lesson, with his eldest
class, when the door opened, and a lad
walked in, holding the momentous yellow
envelope well out before him, as though it
contained an explosive chemical.
" It's yourn, frev beyont t'watter," said
the lad, pushing it into his hand, and then
standing agape and agog, for the result.
Brunskill took it without, for a moment,
realizing what he had to deal with. It was
the first time in his life that- he had received
a telegram, or fingered one of these yellow
i So JULIET.
envelopes ; and he turned it over, puzzled by
its official aspect, that was, however, some-
thing different to a school inspection paper,
or report.
" It's a wire message," said the lad. " It's
run by the rails all frev over t'watter, they
said at Newbrig ; but, my certie, it's beyont
me, how t'rails come over t'watter, eh,
Master I "
Brunskill knew it was a cablegram, and
tore it open, thinking of Doctor Thorns.
What he read, first bewildered, then amazed,
and transfixed him. He stood motionless,
his eyes glued to the page, his face growing
white, his thoughts strained to an intoler-
able tension, as he read the curt, pregnant
words, again and a^ain. It was from Oliver
Ouin, Hotel F , Genoa.
"All is known. Conic at once. Bring
papers and proofs. "
That was what it said ; but it seemed to
him to say so much more, that he turned
"WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 181
dizzy, and faint, and in walking to his chair,
almost fell. He sent a child for a glass of
water, and sat, his elbow on the desk, his
head on his hand, still regarding the simple
missive. After a few moments, he rose, and
continued his work. When the clock struck
twelve, he went to the door, and holding it
open, shook each boy and girl by the hand,
as they passed him. It was half-holiday,
and there was no need to generate more sur-
prise and speculation, than many of them
were already indul^in^in, bv telling them not
to come again to school that day. He would
thus get quietly away before it was generally
known that he was going, and Mr. Gliddon
would have time to appoint a temporary sub-
stitute. All this he had quickly arranged in
his own mind, before he had realized what
his present position involved, and what he
meant to do, and leave undone, before he
started on his journey. There had never
been a moment's hesitation, as to whether he
1 82 JVLIET.
would go, or would not go. His mind leapt
instantly to ways and means. A train left
Newbridge at five p.m. ; it would take an
hour to drive and meet it. He unlocked his
escritoire, and took out a roll of papers, and a
bundle of letters, adding to these, one or two
books, in which was inscribed his mother's
maiden name, a watch, and a signet ring,
engraved with the initials R. M. But when
it came to the question of packing, he sud-
denly remembered he had nothing in which
to pack all necessary for so long a journey,
and a visit of uncertain length ; his travelling
bag would not hold one quarter of what he
had to take, and as there was no possibility
of getting anything larger, nearer than Leeds,
there w r as nothing for it but to borrow of
Mr. Gliddon. He must also borrow money
of Mr. Gliddon. He prepared all as far as
possible, then went out.
He was, going to the Vicarage. During
the mile's walk, he had time to adjust his
"WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" i8*
.>
intentions, and strengthen his resolutions.
From the first moment in which he recovered
himself from the first shock of surprise, he
had resolved to put his fortune to the test,
and ask Molly to be his wife before she
should know his true position, and changed
circumstances. And this, not because he
feared they might bias her to accept him, but
because he felt, that in spite of the know-
ledge of years, this great thing would veil
him in strangeness for a time, to her, and
it would be best that that should wear off
while distance held them apart from speech,
and drew them nearer in constant delicate
glamour of thought.
His heart was full of her, throughout that
walk, and beat strongly with hope, and more
than hope — confidence. He was amazed
by his own sudden confidence ; whereas he
had heretofore waited and watched, hoped
and feared ; he had now sprung to assurance^
and walked hand-in-hand 'with certitude. It
>8 4 JULIET.
was no longer a question of what he should
do, but of how he should do it ; not of what
he should accomplish, but of how she would
help him to the great end, by glance and
word. He became lost in a dream of hap-
piest fulfilment. That morning he had
awoke, wondering when he would dare to
put forth his hand and gather the fruit
which he had tended from bud to flower,
and flower to ripeness. He had seen so
much of her since she came to the Vicarage,
that he could not but feel that the power
and courage would be his some day ; but
only that morning, the some day had seemed
remote. He wished to win her slowly and
surely, to make her feel that it was ruled
that she should want him, and he her, to
complete their happiness in the world. And
now, at one touch, the question of power and
courage had dwindled, shrivelled into dust,
and he felt in every pulse and fibre of him
that the hour was come, and held success.
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 185
He could scarcely believe it. He had pleased
himself lately by thinking that in Spring he
should win her. Poets and philosophers,
throughout the ages, have deemed it natural
and lovely for one human heart to turn to
another in Spring, when the air is vocal with
mating birds, and Earth awakes and dons a
wealth of flowers in hedgerows and flushing
woods, and young life stirs in buds and
leaves and blades, and beneath soft, downy
mother-breasts, in nested ecstasy of antici-
pation ; but it seemed to Brunskill, to-day,
that the love that fulfilled itself in Autumn
was the sweeter love, for his heart seemed
to be sharing earth's mellowness, and reap-
ing tenderest certainties from its earnest
fulfilment of tender promise. The sky had
never seemed so blue, the clouds so ready
to the breeze, the hills so stedfast, the whole
fair valley, with its amethystine distances, so
peacefully removed from fret and jar, sin and
sorrow, as to-day, when he stood a moment
1 86 JULIET.
with his hand on the garden gate at the
Vicarage, and looked at them with the new
feeling of vivid regret at the necessity for
leaving them, merging into satisfaction that
the one love-dream of his life was there and
then to complete itself. There was the
church on the promontory that stretched
out into the meeting of the valleys ; and the
churchyard, where he had told Laybourne,
years ago, that he should be content to lie.
He would not lie there now ; he was aroint
to his own home, his own people, his own
name — to identify himself fully with them, to
live and die apart from Wherndale. But the
best years of his life had completed them-
selves among these moors and hills and
valleys, and he was a man to whom loss was
sacred, and relinquishment, discipline.
As he reached the door, Miss Gliddon
came out, armed with gardening scissors and
pruning-knife.
" I want to speak to you/' he said, in
" WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 187
answer to her exclamation of welcome.
" Can you spare a few moments for me ? '
" An hour, if you like," she said, plung-
ing her hands into the deep pockets of her
apron, that were stored with sticks and mat-
ting ; and leading the way to her favourite
walk, on the edge of the sunk fence.
He followed, his hands clasped behind
him, his eyes bent on the ground, and in five
minutes he had laid the facts of the case
plainly before her. She stood and looked
at him.
" This seems more natural," she said,
slowly.
" What ! ' he asked, adrift in his instinc-
tive humility.
11 That you should be a Mompesson ; but
it is a serious difference."
" Not to me. I have known all so Ion or
Neither need it be to any one who has cared
about me as I have been. You, for instance."
His tone was not so confident as his
1 88 JULIET.
words, and involuntarily merged into interro-
gation, becoming wistful and slightly eager ;
and he looked at her scrutinizingly.
" Surely it will not make me into a
stranger with — any of you ? ' he added,
hastily.
" Then you want her still ? '
" Want her ! Good God ! of course 1
do," he exclaimed, vehemently. " You don't
understand. X^on't you know that if this
had not transpired previously to my winning
her promise, it would then have transpired
at once, in justice to her. If it had been
known who I was, I could not have gone
on living here in this position ; I should
have had lo leave her. That would have
been intolerable. It would be nothing to
me to have the Dower-house, if she would
not help me to make it home. Do you
see r
14 She is in the drawing-room ; go to her,"
Miss Gliddon said in a husky voice ; and he-
"WILL YOU BE MY WIFEV* 189
saw that there were tears in her eyes, and
went away, marvelling.
His course of action seemed to himself per-
fectly natural— the only course which any man
could have taken. As for Ursula Gliddon,
she watched him cross the grass and vanish
within the house ; and then she turned
abruptly, and, pressing her hands over her
eves, had a short, sharp cry for sheer grati-
tude at this revelation of the hidden morali-
ties of a much-abused world.
Brunskill found Molly in the drawing-
room ; she was writing a letter for Miss
Gliddon. As he opened the door, she looked
up ; but he was not looking at her, and her
eyes fell again. He closed the door care-
fully, and slowly walked up to the mantel-
piece, where he stood a moment, holding one
elbow in the other palm. His heart beat
so loud he thought she must hear it ; the
colour had mounted to his face ; his eyes had
suddenly become luminous with a great ten-
i 9 o JULIET.
derness ; he could not trust his voice to
speech. The silence was so strange in its
suspension of all action, so deep and hushed,
that Molly's pen ceased its travelling
across the page, and she sat, with downbent
head, waiting for she knew not what. Still
it lasted. She held her breath, then sighed
and looked up again. This time their eyes
met, and his held hers. She began to
tremble.
Then Brunskill walked up to the table,
and stood above her.
She was very still ; but slowly again
her eyes fell, the pen dropped from her
hands, and she leant forward as though she
would hide her face from his searching
tenderness.
" Molly," he said, " I am going away."
He did not mean the announcement to
affect her, and it did not. He was testing
his voice more than anything else. Both
knew that far more than coming and going
"WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?" 191
was now at stake. She knew that he had
come to tell her more than that.
" Will you be my wife, Molly ? " he said
the next moment, and his voice was as low as
a whisper.
She sat motionless. But his heart did
not fail him. On the contrary, he grew
bolder, and drawing a step nearer, placed his
hand lightly on her head.
" Look up, my darling," he said, bending
over her.
She looked up, and then suddenly she
pushed back her chair and rose, holding out
her hands, her face flushed, her eyes giving
again what his gave, the whole of her stirred
into truest self-surrender.
He took her hands, feeling that hands
and heart were for ever his own, thenceforth.
CHAPTER VII.
FACTS AND FIGURES.
That night, Mrs. Mompesson was seized
with paralysis, and lay for a few hours
between life and death. Then the bad
symptoms somewhat abated, and anxiety
gave place to reasonable hope of recovery.
The crisis, however, roused Mrs. Ouin from
her torpor of brooding passion and resent-
ment, and she descended from the unap-
proachable heights of her silence to impress
upon every one that she had foretold a catas-
trophe of this kind if Mrs. Mompesson did
insist upon coming so far from home ; it was
natural that at her great age illness should
FACTS AND FIGURES. 193
overtake her. But while constantly harping
upon the results, she ignored the cause, and
did not name Brunskill or Henry Mompesson
even to her husband. He made no attempt
to break down this reserve, knowing well
that he would only be met by bitterest anger
and irrational upbraiding, since her grief was
as certainly founded upon wounded pride,
as was his upon affection for Isabel. Thus,
their thoughts were most constantly busy
upon what their lips most tenaciously with-
held, and the social atmosphere grew propor-
tionately heavy.
Juliet had now told Ormrod what had
happened and was still to happen. Her first
hint of the situation passed unnoticed ; he
had not been in the habit of paying so much
attention to other people's affairs as to his
own, and had thought nothing of the vague
rumours that now and then stirred idly in
Moorhead, when the Ouins came down to
Church House, and Henry and Lily Mom-
VOL. III. I
.i
194 JULIET.
pesson sometimes came with them as com-
panions for Isabel. Neither did he perceive
any sequence when she named Brunskill.
His mood was dreamy and inert, thanks
to the languor of a glorious October under
sunny Italian skies.
" And what has Brunskill to do with
these dumps, into which you all seem to be
sinking ? " he asked, lazily twisting his mous-
tache. They were sitting in the gardens
adjoining the Hotel. Juliet's lustrous eyes
were shining in the shadow of a parasol
which she was twirling on her shoulder; in
her lap was a bunch of roses ; he was leaning
back, with one arm thrown along the seat
behind her. Around them was shaven turf,
and orange-trees, laden with fruit, hiding a
trickling fountain ; and at the end of a sunlit
vista of yellowing acacias, the statue of an
Oread, bent on its pedestal, as though listen-
ing to the amorous whispers of the fragrant
air and quivering leaves.
FACTS AND FIGURES. 195
" He is coming- out, of course," Juliet said,
herself dreamy, too.
"What in the world brings him? Is
he going to dig in a second Monte
Christo ? "
" To dig nowhere, but simply to make
himself known to his relations, conveniences
he has been popularly supposed not to
possess, as you know. Don't be too much
amazed, Noll, with the news : he is a grand-
son of Mrs. Mompesson's, the eldest grand-
son and heir of entail."
This was sufficient to bring him instantly
to the perpendicular, and to make him face
her with an incredulous stare of astonishment,
that verged on indignation.
" Preposterous ! ' he said. " You don't
mean that Coombe "
" Is his by entail ? Yes, I do. But he
will cut off the entail and settle down
on the property, content with something
1 '»
less.
196 JULIET.
" Good heavens ! And Molly ? He could
not know this when he thought of marrying
her ? "
" He has known it the whole time he has
lived at Moorhead."
11 But he'll never marry her now.''"
" Why not ? He has only been waiting
for her love, to claim his own name. He
would not marry her under false pretences,
and if the truth had been known, he could
not have gone on living as an elementary
schoolmaster at Moorhead."
" Do you know if they are engaged ? '
11 I don't think thev were, but I should
not think he will come here, so far, and pro-
bably for some time, without winning a pro-
mise from her. If he take her by surprise, I
should think she will give way, and find that
she values him at his worth."
" His worth is certainly great now."
" It has always been morally great, and it
is upon that, that he will win her."
FACTS AND FIGURES. 19;
" Do you mean he won't trade on his pre-
tensions ? Such a bait would draw any girl,
and I daresay she will not have encouraged
him yet — it is not very long since I was
there (Spring, you know), and she is a faith-
ful little soul. Did I ever tell you, Juliet,
how pretty she is grown ? She always was
pretty, certainly, but she wears her hair cut
now, and it curls all over her head in little,
soft, golden-brown curls, that lie on her fore-
head in the most bewitching rings ; and her
eyes are lovely. I should have liked to
paint her, or kiss her in a cousinly way, but
there was nothing of that kind for me ; and
yet I could swear she did not care a jot for
anv other fellow then. I wonder if she does
care for Brunskill now, independently of
what he can offer her. She will have seen a
threat deal of him since Miss Gliddon took
her."
11 The more she has seen of him the better
for her," said Juliet.
198 JULIET.
" Yes, of course, under the circumstances ;
still you know, I did not think she would
have forgotten so "
He was speaking musingly, and stroking
his moustache with his white, filbert-nailed
hand, and what impelled him to stop, he
scarcely knew. Juliet had neither moved nor
spoken, and he had not glanced at her or
given a thought to the impression his train
of reflection might be making upon her ; and
yet he stopped suddenly and looked round,
his hand dropping, his arm half withdrawing
from its encirclement of her. But nothing
was to be heard except the slow tinkle of the
fountain, or seen, except the orange trees
and golden acacias, and the slim, listening
Oread in the distance. Yet he could have
sworn that he had heard a voice he knew,
speaking close at hand.
"What is it?' Juliet asked, not curious,
but welcoming the digression from a subject
that was unutterably painful to her, and
FACTS AND FIGURES. 199
more, humiliating, when approached as he
approached it.
u Did you hear anything ? ' he said, still
looking round in unfeigned uneasiness.
" Nothing," said Juliet, without troubling
herself to move, and after a few moments he
re-settled himself and relapsed into contem-
plation of the distant Oread. Scarcely, how-
ever, had he done so, than two figures came
slowly from the left, midway into the vista,
crossing it, and disappearing again. They
had been directly in his line of vision ; his
eyes followed them at first instinctively, then
with strained eagerness. It was fortunate
that he had not been speaking, or he must
have betrayed the sudden presence of some
strong feeling, by a sudden silence. As it
was, he sat perfectly silent, and Juliet,
absorbed in her own thoughts, and half
hidden from him by her parasol, did not see
the rush of colour to his face, that quickly
ebbed and left him ashy-pale, or the furtive
2oo JULIET.
cold alarm that gleamed in his eyes as he
glanced at her, and satisfied himself that she
was unsuspicious and ignorant of a fact of
which he was now certain. He almost
shivered, as he sat there in the balmy sun-
shine, trying to collect himself and gather his
thoughts together, and determine what to do
for the best, in the face of this danger that
threatened him, and might overtake him un-
relentingly at any moment, even with Juliet
beside him. Ah ! the danger was all the
greater because she was there ; this was not
what shecould save him from. Her conscience
could not be his should this emergency arise ;
on the contrary, he felt it must stand apart
from his in sharpest relief of censure and
judgment and retribution, unless — and the
possibility of doubt flashed into his mind
with a lightning flash of hope and respite —
unless Evelyn Dalyrymple no longer loved
him, and was freed from a passion, none the
less sharp for its brevity. He, who only
FA CTS AND FIG URES. 2 o 1
just before, had been complacently reflecting
on the affection of one woman for him, would
now have given the world to know that this
other cared nothing for him, or whether he
were living or dead, near her, or half a con-
tinent away. The agony of doubt and appre-
hension, he suffered in those short minutes, was
a Nemesis. His hope was, that it might suffice
in expiation. But he could not know that it
would, and meanwhile the danger was press-
ing. He felt that if Evelyn and her com-
panion came that way then, his wits would
forsake him ; he should be helpless to com-
bat any emergency, to make any attempt
at passing off the situation with a high
hand, at glossing over treacherous surmises
in either woman's mind, at evading Juliet's
single-minded frank generosity, at controlling
Evelyn, should she again verge on loss of
self-control. One little minute, and all might
be undone, his carefully-constructed fabric of
security and happiness vanish into thin air
2 02 JULIET.
for ever. The thought was maddening-, and
drove him into the hottest terror, of the con-
sequences of a sin and betrayal, which in its
entirety he was only just realizing, now that
requital faced him and would be acknow-
ledged.
"Juliet, I think we might go in — it is too
hot," he added, as she tilted her parasol and
looked round at him, struck by a new tone
in his voice, a tone thin yet husky, which, in
spite of his utmost endeavours, he had been
unable to avoid.
" Very well, dear," she said, readily, and
took up her roses ; but he suddenly leant for-
ward and enclosed her hand, roses and all, in
his, thus tacitly compelling her to remain
seated.
" And yet it is very pleasant here, nothing
could be pleasanter," he said, striving to
determine to his own satisfaction whether
the path taken by those two figures led, or
did not lead, direct to the hotel.
FACTS AND FIGURES. 203
" Delicious ! " said Juliet. " But you look
pale, as though you found it too hot. You
have had your hat off half the time, foolish
boy ! We will go in now ; I must read with
Lily, and you can rest and skim the papers,
only I fear you will find the atmosphere of
our rooms, charged with electricity at present.
Things would not have been nearly so
awkward, had this happened at Coombe. I
am very sorry. Doctor Thorns may come
with Mr. Brunskill, and we shall all be
under the same roof, a mass of incongruous
elements, trying to every one, and not least
so, to outsiders like you and I."
They were crossing the grass now, having
passed the fountain, and keeping among the
orange trees in the opposite direction to the
acacias, guided thus by Ormrod's unper-
ceived manoeuvring. Juliet had stuck her
flowers in her waistband, and was looking
down at them serenely.
" When are we going to the Ouesia
2o 4 JULIET.
Valley ? It should be this month, before the
trees are bare," she said. " Let us go to-
morrow, if it be like to-day. Mr. Quin wants
Lily to walk with him until Henry and
Isabel come, afterwards she will be more
with me again ; and I should like us to get
there, Noll."
" Yes, we will go to-morrow, if you like,"
Ormrod said, hastily, with a sort of gasp ;
for ahead of them, there just then again
appeared, those two figures, slowly walking
arm-in-arm towards the hotel.
They were close to them now, and he
easily recognized Evelyn's married sister,
Mrs. St. Paul, in the second lady ; but
although they walked slowly, there did not
seem to be any necessity for it from physical
weakness on Evelyn's part, for as he watched,
she unlinked her arm and stooped to gather
a sprig of heliotrope, then followed her sister
with a light firm step. They would certainly
reach the door long before Juliet and he, but
FACTS AND FIGURES. 205
they might linger in the hall, a dozen con-
tingencies were possible — more than a dozen
if indeed, as he now believed with deadly
heart-sick misgivings, they were visitors at
the same hotel as themselves, and not merely
loiterers, like many others, through its semi-
public gardens.
He put his hand on Juliet's arm, and
gently turned her round. It was as impera-
tively necessary that they should not see her
as himself. He must have time to rally his
expediencies, and arm himself at all points,
before these two came in contact ; and yet
any moment might bring discovery. It was
impossible that one or other member of the
two parties should not run foul of each other
when they were all going out and coming in
at the same doors, every hour of the day.
This was a position which he had never con-
ceived possible in his wildest dreams, except
as happening in Rome, and to Rome he had
long ago fully determined not to return, unless
206 JULIET.
with Juliet as his wife. He cursed the fate
that had sent the Dalyrymples to Genoa,
travelling like birds of passage, when, accord-
ing to all precedent of many years, they
should have been stationary in or near Rome,
to which city they were now fully acclima-
tized. Anything more perilous than his
present situation he could not conceive ; and
when he recalled his last interview with
Evelyn, there was no wonder that his heart
sank like lead, and he refused to be com-
forted, or to hope, where hope seemed utterly
forlorn. He could have groaned, as he laid
his arm on Juliet's ; but as he durst make no
sign of mental anguish, and she was already
regarding him wonderin^lv, he had to dis-
semble, and take refuge in the first subterfuge
that occurred to him. This was of a nature
which he hailed as an inspiration, specially
sent by Providence for his safety.
" Don't you think it would be a capital
thing if I got out of the way for a week or
FACTS AND FIGURES. 207
two ? " he said. " What should you say to
my going a sketching tour along the Western
Riviera ? Don't you think the Quins and
Mompessons would consider it a delicate
arrangement on my part, at such a moment-
ous crisis in their family affairs, to leave them
all en famille, and at liberty to take their
observations of each other without a com-
parative stranger in their midst ? It seems
to me rather a happy idea."
" But I am a comparative stranger, too ;
and I should be left, and alone ! ' said Juliet,
reasonably.
" They don't treat you as a stranger,
dear ; you are an old and valued friend, in
hackneyed phrase. It seems to me the very
thing," he urged, as reflection convinced him
of the fact, on all the points at issue. " You
see I don't much relish meeting Brunskill,
either. He and I fell out by the way,
eighteen months ago, and perhaps I was not
too civil that night I turned up at Moorhead
208 JULIET.
Vicarage and found you flown ; but a touch
of temper was certainly excusable under
those circumstances, and he's a good-hearted
fellow. Really though, Juliet, if you think
about it, you'll see it stands to reason that it
won't be pleasant for me to meet him. He's
no longer Brunskill, but a Mompesson in full
feather ; and he'll probably be toppy, and I
won't stand his airs "
" Wait until you find there are airs,"
Juliet broke in, sharply. <f As usual, you are
thinking wholly of yourself — and that not
to your own advantage, in my estimation.
Brunskill will not for one moment suffer
himself to be influenced by any recollections
derogatory to you, when he meets you here."
" Now I have vexed you," he said,
caressing her hand, which she felt, at the
instant, petulantly disposed to pull away.
" Never mind, my darling. And, yet, be-
cause I wouldn't for the world grieve you
willingly, I'll confess it was a slip ; of course,
FACTS AND FIGURES. 209
he won't have airs. I'll promise to be more
moral, ' an so you are minded,' if you'll pro-
mise not to be so exacting of morality.
You're down on a fellow so sharp, Juliet.
You must take me as you find me ; it'll save
us both much trouble, you know. Come
now, don't look so solemn. Give me graci-
ous permission to go sketching."
" I did not think we should part again so
soon," she said, wistfully.
" That is it, is it ? ' he rejoined lightly,
and with evident relief. " You are thinking
of the Quesia Valley, et cetera ; but we will
manage that before I go. Yes we will, I
vow," he added, as though to himself.
" Brunskill can't be here to-morrow ; and if
the yacht arrives, well, the situation won't
then be at its most melodramatic stage. As
for other things, they may go—to the devil ! "
he said hoarsely, under his breath, and stood
still with his hands on her shoulders, looking
down into the deeps of her eyes with a
VOL. III. 14
2:o JULIET.
scorching scrutiny that amazed and terrified
her, shaking her out of her serenity, and dis-
gust, and indignation, that had all been more
or less fictitious, and rousing her to nameless
dread and ice-cold misgiving.
"What other things ? " she asked, faintly,
electrified by his passionate gaze, whose
stormy love quelled immediate fear, and yet
did not soothe the tumult of speculation to
which her brain had at once leapt. She was
drooping under his touch, which, involun-
tarily, and unknown to himself, had strength-
ened into a grasp of iron that seemed to bear
her down into the ground ; and suddenly, as
though unconscious of his actions and regard-
less of time and place and propriety, he put
his arms round her, pressed her to him, and
rained kisses upon her lips and brow and
hair. She was powerless to resist, over-
whelmed by the vehement reckless abandon-
ment of the utterly unexpected action ; and
when at last he released her, withdrawing
FA CTS A ND FIG URES. 2 1 1
from her, a face pale to the very lips, and
with eyes dimmed by his momentary frenzy
of possession, she could only stand and gaze
at him helplessly and reproachfully, as one
who had been taken unawares and swept
along- in a current too strong to stem, too
bewildering to realize, but whose relentless
force had been tinctured with a pain that yet
was exquisite, and had thrilled her nature to
its very depths.
After this, it was not possible that more
could be said on any subject on which they
were not perfectly agreed, and they went on
to a little gate that opened on the street,
some distance from the side of the hotel, to
which they had previously walked. This an-
swered Ormrod's purpose admirably. It was
easy to frame an excuse for leaving her and
going down into the town, without seeming
either discourteous or unkind ; when she was
so near home. He murmured something-
inarticulate, pressed her hand violently, and,
212 JULIET.
with another burning glance, left her, walk-
ing hurriedly towards a corner of the street
which he must turn. There he stood an
instant, looked back, and, seeing her still
standing, waved his hand from the lips. She
raised her hand in answer, then went on, and
soon was safe and quiet in the careful cool-
ness of her own room, utterly unconscious
that only two walls separated her from
Evelyn Dalyrymple, the cause of his un-
wonted, bewildering agitation, and of her ex-
hausting tremor of confused, half-frightened,
delicious rapture.
She did not see him again that day. He
did not join their dinner ; and, on questioning
Carl, she found he had not been in to table-
dJwte either. But there was nothing unusual
in this ; his movements often being erratic,
and his evenings sometimes spent with an
American artist, with whom he had made
acquaintance the previous winter in Rome,
and who had turned up here about the same
FACTS AND FIGURES. 213
time as he did. Probably he had gone to
him, bent on inducing him to join his sketch-
ing tour in the Riviera. She spent half her
night in Mrs. Mompesson's room, Sibbert
being worn out, and the doctor not having
yet succeeded in procuring a nurse ; and, as
the hours passed, giving her ample time for
thought, she began to entertain that plan of his
as reasonable and desirable, although it bore
selfishness and some cowardice on the face of
it. It would be a relief that Doctor Thorns
and he should not meet ; and there had
been a telegram from the Doctor to say he
should meet Brunskill at Turin, and come
on with him from thence. It was impossible
that she could go away, but for the Doctors
sake it would be better if Ormrod did. And
he had been right in alluding to the sudden
climax of affairs as delicate, where a stranger
like himself must feel himself, and be felt
by others, a supernumerary, against whose
presence one and all would guard before
2 14 JULIET.
broaching such obviously private topics, in
which he had no interest, or need have.
She was certainly different ; all more or less
confided in her, and relied upon her for
information or advice. But there could be
no doubt that, when Brunskill and Doctor
Thorns arrived, and the yacht with its un-
conscious occupants also reached Genoa
from its cruise in the Levant, the ensuing
complication could only be realized and
adjusted by a series of explanations in which
she could materially help, but where Ormrod
would be useless and awkward, and, as such,
driven elsewhere for congenial companion-
ship. Yes, she should advise him to go,
and more, command him. He really had
been clever to think of it ; and it must, after
all, be at a sacrifice of convenience and in-
clination, for she knew he hated to move
about with an elaborate sketching parapher-
nalia ; and he and his friend Harvard were
hard at work, in one studio, upon enthralling
FA CTS AND FIG URES. 2 1 5
subjects, of which she had been promised a
view, when they had emerged from their
present chrysalis obscurity.
Her momentary misgiving over his out-
burst of affection had, by this, entirely
vanished ; it naturally made her happy to
attribute it to uncontrollable joyful satisfac-
tion in their relation to each other. She
had seen the two figures, but had been far
from recognizing them, as it was now some
years since her first visit to Rome. His
manner had been inexplicably erratic and .
uncertain ; but then it had been a lover's
manner throughout, and a woman in love, is
content if there be no deviation from pre-
cedent, in that respect. Of course, had any
one come by, when he was holding her in
that impassioned embrace, it would have
made the situation unutterably awkward and
ridiculous ; but as no one had come by, she
could not have found it in her heart to recal
the incident with less than trembling rapture:
2i6 JULIET.
He had not wanted to part from her then :
how much less could he bear the thought of
a longer parting ? She well knew the frenzy
that overtakes a man at the prospect of
separation from one in whom his soul is
bound up ; how exaggerated becomes the
effect in comparison to the cause ; how love
imagines and distorts the shadow of distress,
into a substance from which there is no
escape. Ormrod's mode of conveying this
impression to her, only varied from Doctor
Thorns' and one or two others, because it
was that of a successful lover compared with
other less fortunate ones ; and when viewed
in the dim silence of midnight and dawn, it
acquired a charm of devotion which any
woman must have welcomed and taken
home in blissful, confident faith and trust,
to shed a halo round her sleeping and
waking hours in this work-a-day world,
which is only too full of hard facts and pro-
saic, commonplace, circumstances. He had
FACTS AND FIGURES. 217
not for a moment lost outward self-posses-
sion, or allowed her to see his eyes rest
upon those figures, who were, after all, only
two among many to be found in the garden
at all hours ; and it was not to be wondered
at, that her last thought before she fell asleep,
as the dawn broke, was of supreme thank-
fulness that she was so loved where she
loved again.
CHAPTER VIII.
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS.
Meanwhile Ormrod, in trying to avoid his
Fate, rushed headlong into it. After leav-
ing Juliet, he went down into the town, and
thence along the western shore. He felt the
necessity of being alone, and realizing all
that was at stake. He must find out where
the Dalyrymples really were, and then arrange
his plans accordingly ; but so certain was he
that the Dalyrymples were as close as pos-
sible to the Quins' quarters, that his feverish
panic of alarm and misgivings, increased at
every step. His self-possession and assur-
ance had completely forsaken him. He knew
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 219
that Evelyn could bring forward no proof of
reckless flirtation, still less of serious inten-
tions beyond flirtation, but his conscience
told him that the flirtation had been reckless,
he had pushed it as far as the utmost limit
of safety ; her friends knew how constantly
they had been together, and that if she had
pointedly sought him out and shown her
preference, he had at other times taken the
initiative, and borne down all the reluctance
and the obstacles with which they had en-
deavoured to guide and control her, triumph-
antly carrying her off from their supervision,
and encouraging her, at every point, to devote
her affection to him, on the ground of its
being fully reciprocated.
As he walked, one tender episode after
another, recurred to his mind, episodes in
which the one direct question of wifehood,
was alone wanting, to complete the perfection
of relationship. He had been proud to be
singled out by a girl to whom fascination of
2 2o JULIET.
the other sex came instinctively, giving her
a command the more unique from its absence
of physical charm ; and not only this, but
he was also fully aware that to a great extent
her affection had at one time been recipro-
cated. Juliet had always maintained her sway
over his inmost heart and best self, but she
had retired into the background of a secure
future, where he knew he might claim and
possess her, and Evelyn, meanwhile, had filled
his life with enjoyment, and pandered to a
lower phase of his nature. It mattered little
now, that he could only think of her with
loathing, that the old charm was exorcised ;
his imprudences and their effects remained,
and if she chose to sacrifice her dignity and
self-respect, and expose him to Juliet, he knew
that Juliet was not one to view it in its light
and trifling aspect.
After his walk, in which he only came to
the resolve to shun the hotel and get away
as soon as possible, he went to his friend,
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 221
Harvard, to try to persuade him to go with
him. Harvard was naturally surprised by his
sudden change of plan, and the desertion of
their mutual model and subject ; and jumped
at once to the conclusion that he was acting
from motives ulterior to enthusiasm over
sketching, for which, indeed, he knew he had
no particular enthusiasm.
" Of course this means a tiff," he said,
tilting his chair back, and momentarily re-
moving his meerschaum from his lips.
" I've no one to tiff with," was the moody
answer.
" The fair one," suggested Harvard.
" The indefinite article would be more to
the purpose in this case."
" Of course every one knows you're uni-
versally admired and admiring, my dear
fellow," said Harvard, smoothly.
" Then every one knows a deuced un-
pleasant fact," Ormrod retorted, pulling
savagely at his moustache.
222 JULIET.
" It didn't strike me that you considered
it so deuced unpleasant last winter. It
seemed to suit you very well ; but of course
there was not the fair one in the way, to
enter objections to the universality of the
thinor "
" You stretch a point there, vwn don, and
I wish you didn't. There's a safety in num-
bers not to be attained when all one's ener-
gies are devoted to one object. Naturally
it looks as though one wanted that object,
and would be a miserable wretch without it ;
and it becomes awkward if the sense of want,
merge finally entirely into the object, and
she begin to pay back in one's own coin of
perseverance."
"Which means that Miss Dalyrymple is
on your track," said Harvard, unexpectedly,
as he touched up the drapery of his interior,
with firm, precise, nonchalant strokes.
"Ah ! then you've seen her?" said Orm-
rod, relieved that the murder was out in a
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 223
direction where it was fully known, but un-
disguisedly nervous of more.
" Yes. I came across her yesterday. I'd
been at the Theatre hearing ' Lucia di Lam-
mermoor,' and she was coming out with a
party, largely made up of gentlemen, as usual.
You know how quick she is. -Well, she saw
me instantly, and signed me graciously, to
swell the train. You can imagine how flut-
tered I felt, until I found it was not on my
own merits I was wanted. Her first question
was after you, and did 1 know where you
were r
" Well, and did you split ?" Ormrod asked,
in a fine tone of sneering sarcasm, which
certainly did not conceal his anxiety and
trepidation. He had turned from the win-
dow, where he had been thrumming irritably
on the pane, and stood facing his companion
with a bearing expressive of something be-
tween haughtiness and servility. Harvard,
glancing at him, saw that his face was white,
224 JULIET.
his lips set, his eyes haggard and restless,
and began to think that matters were indeed
£oin£ hard with him.
" No, I didn't split," he said, " but she
suspected me. Her mind's evidently full of
you, and she seemed to have an idea that
you and I should not be far apart. Certainly
she knows of no counter attraction to vour
work except herself, and she means to be
the only counter attraction. There's no
doubt you're on the edge of a volcano. Do
you know where they're staying ? '
" I suspect," said Ormrod, in a low
voice.
" Hotel F ," said Harvard, pleasantly.
" There'll be the devil to pay if she run
foul of me."
" Well, but she mustn't. You mean, of
course, that the other wouldn't stand that
sort of thing? It isn't that you care a jot
for E. 1)., I suppose, and would have your
heart dichiri^ et cetera, by keeping faith with
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 125
your Diana ; but simply that you're afraid of
Diana's scruples running away with her
sentiment if she found E. D. were devoted
to you, and heard by chance, of valses ad
libitum ; moonlight walks ditto ; fashionable
promenades ditto ; drives, plays, ditto ; billets
doux, cadeaux, embraces, kiss "
" That will do ; you're putting it very
coarsely, and if you must drag Miss Lay-
bourne into such a discussion, give her her
name, will you, as a mark of respect," inter-
rupted Ormrod, hotly.
" My dear fellow, it's because I respect
her so immensely that I avoid her name. It's
a coarse subject, if you were engaged to her
before this affair."
"Ah, but I wasn't, not outright; she
wouldn't take me. I was on probation for
a while."
"And employed your time thus. Well,
you couldn't well have been in hotter water
before. I fear you are a very gay Lothario
vol. in. 15
226 JULIET.
indeed. So you went straight home last
spring, represented yourself as immaculate,
and got engaged to that fine girl ; and now
you begin to think of Nemesis. Where have
you seen E. D. ? "
Then Ormrod recounted his adventure of
the morning, and hair's-breadth escape, and
Harvard listened, knowing the emergency
to be fully as great as he feared. Evelyn's
anxiety had been feverish and importunate,
and, worse than either of these, pathetic.
Though flirting in the old way with a circle
of adorers, it had been easy to see that the
old spirit was not in it ; she had llagged
now and then, and looked listless and pre-
occupied, and Harvard had been touched by
the look in her eyes as she fixed them on
him, and implored him with their wistful
depth of eagerness and soul-search, to be
kind, and tell her what he knew. Such
looks are more appalling in a woman one
has been accustomed to consider frivolous.
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 227
than in a woman who meets all life's vicissi-
tudes with earnestness ; and though he with-
stood the temptation to let her avenge her-
self, and stuck loyally to his colours as
Ormrod's friend, he had wished very heartily
that he was not his friend, and that she might
avenge herself, and had sworn at the devilry
that could fill a girl's being with sickly heart-
break, and turn aside without a pang.
Evelyn was miserable, but she was not the
woman to be cowed by misery ; she would
turn, and lash with scorpion stings, and level
derision and reproach at him, in sheer passion
and defiance and hatred of her own har-
rowing love, that tore her even as she strove
to stamp it underfoot.
" Look here, Ormrod," he said, " she's dis-
tractingly in love."
" Yet ? "
" Yes, and it's a red-hot shame to have to
say it. Those flippant girls go furthest when
once they're off."
228 JULIET.
" Not always ; no one now could go fur-
ther than Juliet."
" Miss Laybourne. I think you're wrong
there ; you wish to judge her by yourself, and
you forget that her standard is higher, and
therefore at once more rational and less pas-
sionate than yours. She has the same
capacity for affection in her ; but it's more
subdued and controlled, as different as pos-
sible from Miss Dalyrymple's or your own.
Thus Miss Dalyrymple could go further than
she ; she could set moralities and scruples
and principles aside, and plunge headlong
into self-satisfaction at the precise point
where Miss Laybourne would recoil and
hold her breath, and say, ' / cannot do this
tiling ; and that not because she is a prude,
but because she is a noble woman, who
won't trample on another's happiness or woe
in order to attain her own, which happens to
lie beyond them."
There was silence after this speech.
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 229
Harvard had spoken seriously, and had not
been ashamed to throw a tone of deep
feeling and sympathetic perception into his
voice ; and Ormrod felt suddenly, that a
drama was in progress, and that the outsider
was far more appreciative of its lights and
shades, than he at least ; also that these esti-
mates of character and the springs that
move actions, were incomparably just and
delicate.
" You can imagine then, you, who fathom
her nobility, and yet do not love her, what it
must be to one who does, to have to face the
bare thought of losing her," he said, slowly.
Harvard did not at once reply. Before
he did, he stooped to knock the ashes from
his meerschaum, and so took his face behind
his easel.
" We have got into fine personalities," he
said, " and you must forgive my saying that
passionate love like yours is not the highest
type of affection. I don't consider your type
230 JULIET.
of affection worthy of her, and I do consider
she might do better, and risk greater chances
of happiness. In the long run, you will jar
upon her."
" Then possibly, for her sake, you think it
will be a good thing for Evelyn to knock up
against me ?" said Ormrod, jeeringly.
" Ouite the reverse. It would be a catas-
trophe, and bring fruitless pain upon every
one, since you would never marry her, if
matters went amiss and you lost the
other."
" No, by Heaven! But it begins to look
as though matters w r ere fated to <^o amiss. I
know I am not worthy of Juliet."
" It is a good thing you do know it, for
thou art not, thou frail man! Well, then,
don't go up to Hotel F in daylight, keep
snug, and get away to-morrow. Of course
the D.s and M.s will come across each
other ; but it won't even much matter if
Miss Laybourne and Evelyn go in an arm-
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 231
and-arm tete-a-tete, so long as you're not in
the vicinity. You are the spark to set the
whole train alight. Then marry quickly,
and, for God's sake and hers, walk straight,
and keep your eyes for your wife only, after
that, man ! You've terribly roving eyes
where women go, and your tastes tally with
them."
As Harvard spoke, impetuously, but
with heart-felt earnestness, he walked up
to Ormrod and wrung his hand.
" You must be in love with her yourself,"
said Ormrod, with an awkward half laugh,
but far too full of fear and misgiving to resent
the lecture.
" No. If I were, I should have no
sense left, for these pros and cons over
others." said Harvard. And he spoke
truth.
Ormrod had, after all, to make preparations
for solitary departure, not being able to per-
suade Harvard to accompany him.
2 32 JULIET.
u I have no sins of this kind to expiate,"
said he, painting serenely, and so declined to
move, to Ormrod's unfeigned disgust.
The next morning he was out early, before
Juliet, after her night's watch, was awake, but
left a note, asking her to meet him in the
Quesia Valley, at a certain hour. He was
going to get some new colours ; had ordered
his luggage to be taken to the station, and
did not mean to return to the hotel. He
forgot that the Dalyrymples would be likely
to haunt any other places, than its gardens,
and hall, and corridors ; still more, that they
might be out before himself; and thus it
happened, that he walked up to Evelyn in
Via Soziglia, and in the act of passing her so
close as to touch her dress, was roused from
his secret psean, and transfixed by a sudden
joyful exclamation, and an eagerly out-
stretched hand, barring his progress.
" I knew you must be somewhere very
near, when I saw Mr. Harvard," she cried.
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 233
" And here you are. I have found you, and
you me."
For one moment, that seemed to himself
an age, he kept his eyes down. The shock
was tremendous, it took his breath, and left
him sick and giddy ; everything spun round,
all his blood seemed to rush to his head ;
then it rushed back, and he lifted a colourless
face to hers, and held out his hand involun-
tarily, with a smile, which his frightful struggle
with himself, could scarcely prevent from
being absolutely craven. His first instinct
was to glance round, and be certain that
Juliet was not in sight. It was impossible
that he could at once realize this misfortune —
a few more hours and he would have been
safe ; but now Evelyn had found him, and
even if she had not yet seen Juliet, she would
do, and nothing else was to be expected than
that she would now talk to her of him, and
betray her deep interest. He felt as though
he were in a net, and Was only more hope-
2-4 JULIET.
lessly entangled by every struggle to get free.
It was a terrible moment for both of them.
Evelyn, with eager eyes fixed upon him, had
realized instantly that she was the most un-
welcome sight upon which he could have
gazed, that he would have given worlds to
avoid her, that she had nothing to hope for
from him, that her life was no longer worth
living ; and as she stood, her first joy giving
way to heartsick dismay, her eyes grew cold
and hard, her lips curled, and she burst into
a short broken laugh.
" You don't seem pleased to see me," she-
said.
" I am so amazed/' said Ormrod, feebly,
yet tightening his hold on her hand.
At all risks he must keep her quiet, lull
her, and disarm her suspicions. 1 Ie felt, that
could he but master himself, and rally his
courage and self-possession, he might even
yet. master her, by using her love as a tool
against herself. If he succeeded in deceiving
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 235
her, he could control her, and she would be
powerless in his hands. Then he must hurry
on his marriage, by every persuasion and
representation at his command, and be clear
once, and for ever, of these miserable fears
and pains. The only other alternative, that
of unshrinking honesty with both, and throw-
ing himself on Juliet's mercy and affection,
never occurred to him. It was not in his
nature to be courageous at such a climax.
" I want to speak to you. I must, and
will," said Evelyn.
He hesitated. It was evident that she
meant him to go away with her from the
crowded thoroughfare, where they were jostled
and crushed, and he did not relish the idea of
a long, and probably recriminative, interview.
" My sister and her husband are in this
shop," she said, goaded by his hesitation,
V and if you won't do as I demand, I will call
them, and explain matters "
"My dear Miss Dalyrymple, what mat-
236 JULIET.
ters arc there to explain ? ' he interrupted.
" Certainly, if you wish to explain any mis-
take that may have arisen, I am quite ready
to listen. But I have not much time on
hand. I am preparing- for a journey."
He found that he had to go a long way
with her. She meant to be quiet and unin-
terrupted. There was a force and energy
about her, which took him by surprise ; she
seemed to be in perfect health, and to have
lost her old liability to fatigue. How could
he know that she had not walked in this way
for months, and was only now enabled to do
so by the false strength of hysterical excite-
ment, that was far more dangerous than twice
the amount of ordinary fatigue ? He walked
at her side through the hot streets, and stole
furtive glances at her, considering- her, and
her claims to consideration, with the most
cold-blooded deliberation. She was passable,
he decided ; her figure was not bad, except for
the stoop from her shoulders. She was care-
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 237
fully dressed, and wore a red velvet toque,
that eave her hair, auburn tints in the sun-
shine ; and though she seemed so much
stronger, her face had gained in delicacy and
her eyes in brightness. Indeed, they were
doing so momentarily, as her sense of un-
wonted exertion increased. They were toil-
ing upwards ; she was leading him through
short cuts, and stifling alleys, and it suddenly
flashed upon him that she was making
straight for the Hotel F . This was an
appalling thought, involving numberless pos-
sibilities. Had she already seen Juliet, and
was she cognisant of the true state of the
case, and meaning to have her revenge effec-
tually ? But if not, and they were to go into
the gardens, Juliet herself might be there,
and meet them ; or Quin might be smoking,
with Lily as his companion. Did she know
that they were there, and had she known that
he was ? Yet he dare not propose that they
should go elsewhere, for that would at once
233 JULIET.
betray that he knew where they were going,
had known where she was, and had some-
thing to avoid. And thus, in silence, they
pursued their way. He was too deeply
sunk in thought, to talk on general matters,
and too conscious that this would be his only
opportunity for rallying his self-confidence
and mustering all his resources ; and she was
too angry, too miserable, too breathless, to
utter a word. At last they reached the
corner from which, only a few hours before,
he had waved a kiss to Juliet. As they
turned it, Evelyn stopped suddenly, pressing
her hand to her side and panting for breath,
her face becoming ghastly from pain and
laboured breathing. He thought she was
going to faint or fall, and rushed to support
her. She leaned against him for a few
moments, until the paroxysm passed, and
grave her command over herself again ; then
raised her head and looked at him.
11 I am not strong, you see," she said, in
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 239
a low voice ; " we have walked too fast. Will
you let me take your arm ? '
He assented, even eagerly, The old fear
had overtaken him, of her breaking a blood-
vessel under his eyes in an agitation that
would be attributed to his influence, and
though he wished her out of the way, he did
not wish such a catastrophe to occur with him.
His relief was therefore great when she
recovered strength to speak and move ; and
he would have welcomed any suggestion.
This was natural enough, and involved no
new danger. In a moment they were going
slowly on, and he was becoming peculiarly
conscious of the new sensation with which
the light touch of her hand infected him.
They were again silent, but both knew that
this was a different silence. She was feeling
to a certain extent satisfied, and he was
in some subtle, indefinable way, soothed.
More than soothed, he would not admit him-
self, but she knew well the power that the
2 4 o JULIET.
lightest woman's touch can exert on a sus-
ceptible temperament like his, and this power
of contact, over his lower nature, was all from
which she could now hope for personal suc-
cess.
In this way they reached the little gate
where Ormrod had parted from Juliet, and
as they passed through, his one thought was
that their windows did not look this way, and
that by going to the limits of the gardens,
where they merged into the vineyards and
chestnut woods of the hills, he should be
secure of having Evelyn to himself.
"We are staying here," she said, "Mr.
St. Paul, Thirza, and I."
" I should think it is charming," he said,
looking round and perceiving in the distance
the seat where he had sat with Juliet, and in
front, the avenue of acacias which they were
about to cross, as Evelyn and her sister had
crossed it before. Yet it did not seem to him
at the moment, that the irony of fate was cruel.
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 241
And he turned as they crossed the chequered
light and shade of the yellowing acacias, to
look for the listening Oread. Yes, although
it seemed a year since he had looked at her
before, she was there, still listening. They
went on across the turf, in and out among
the trees, past other statues, and seats, and
strollers, and he marvelled at his sense of
safety, his lack of trepidation, and the dolce
far niente impression which alone, was what
everything gave him. He seemed to have
come to enchanted ground, and to be lulled
by syrens to no feeling but of perfect secu-
rity ; yet he knew this was an old spell
returning upon him in unabated force, a spell
to be shunned as rendering him in part the
tool, which it was his intention to render her.
It created a mild surprise in him that he
could tolerate Evelyn's proximity, that he
was not loathing her and repulsing her, as he
had fully expected to do ; he even seemed to
be losing the impression of their last inter-
vol. in. 16
242 JULIET.
view. Glancing at her acrain, she seemed
now, more than passable. She had taken off
her hat, and her hair was meshed with sun-
shine and blowing in curly coquettish wisps
low upon her forehead, and around the shell-
like little ears that constituted her only claim
to beauty. The colour in her cheeks might
be hectic, but it was becoming ; her eyes
were not now red and swollen with weeping,
but soft and pathetically mournful and con-
hdine ; and he knew the touch of her hand
on his arm had become more clinging, and
expressive of tender trust and dependency.
Above all, she was perfectly self-controlled,
and seemed to have sunk into a minor key,
even, musical and plaintive. Her passionate
an ire r had faded and left no trace behind it,
no hint even of unshed tears. He could not
associate reproach, and accusation, and re-
crimination, with her now ; still less anticipate
a burst of fury, and scorn, and overwhelming
self-advocacy. This was what he called
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 243
true- womanly, a page out of Juliet's book.
Yes, she was certainly marvellously changed
for the better. And what had changed her,
what had tamed her and subdued her in this
delightful narcotic fashion — what, but love
for himself ? Yet it was his painful duty to
disabuse her mind of any hope of recipro-
cation, though just at present he did not see
his way clearly to doing so, or in fact to
doing anything but acting and uttering as
many lies as the momentous exigency of the
situation, most undeniably rendered necessary
and excusable.
Presently they sat down on a rustic seat
under a chestnut, a little apart from the path
to the hills ; and Evelyn leant back and
fixed her eyes upon him, not eagerly, but
with evenly-sustained interest. 1
" Have you thought much of me all this
time ? ' she asked, slowly.
" Yes, a great deal," he said, leaning for-
ward, and working in the turf with his stick.
244 JULIET.
" Did you get my letters ? '
"Yes."
11 I should certainly have preferred that
you should answer them, though doubt-
less you had good reasons for not doing
so.
" Most excellent reasons," he said, barely
repressing a smile at the comedy of the thing,
which admitted of truth, though it was the
truth of cross purposes. He had yet to
learn that the woman's tactics may be keener
and more piercing than the man's, driving
with impudent recklessness straight at the
root of the matter, and sacrificing everything
to the determination to accomplish her own
ends.
" But your prospects must become more
assured every day," said Evelyn now. still
in the low passionless voice that disarm* d
suspicion of the hidden forces of will and
wish, at work within her.
" More assured ? Certainly," he. said,
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 245
taken by suprise, and groping after her full
meaning without, however, grasping it.
" I have always known you would be a
successful man."
"It is very good of you to have taken
so much interest."
" Naturally my interest increases, it is not
likely to be a thing of the past. Each year
will ensure you new successes and give you
a wider range for success, for more personal
success. It won't do to depend wholly on
brain power, you know, for social success
too."
" I shall have to do that for some
time.
" Of course, but other ends will at least
be in view, and I never can understand how
a girl can be impatient, when her lover has
to work as well as wait for her. How lone
have you been here, and where are you
staying ? " »
" You would be none the wiser if I told
246 JULIET.
you, a poor man's quarters are unobtrusive
and Bohemiam."
His blood was running cold, yet the lie
came glibly. He began to perceive her
drift. She was taking everything as a
matter of course which should not be taken
so, and ignoring any other possibility than
inclination prompted. But her calmness
crippled him, there was nothing here which
he could resent or expostulate against,
nothing that made him loathe her ; yet he
was in the anomalous position of a man
to whom an offer of marriage is made, with-
out affording him the option of frank refusal,
such as is always open to a woman. Far
from lending gracious and easy attention to
an explanation of hers, there was before him
a choice of two alternatives, that of accept-
ing the position she had made for him, or of
himself entering into an explanation such as
he had the uncomfortable feeling that she
was determined to misunderstand and waive
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 247
aside, in pursuance of a deliberately arranged
plan for his entanglement.
" You said you were going to take a
journey. Have you been here so long as to
exhaust the place ? " she said.
" Only a few days."
11 Then why were you going away ? '
" I am going away to sketch."
" Then you will stay now, and sketch
here," she said, confidently, and without trou-
bling to watch his expression. It was the
best part of her tactics, to show no anxiety,
uncertainty or uneasiness, and nothing could
have thrown him so completely off his balance,
as this unexpected and novel self-possession.
fi My arrangements are complete "
" They affect no one but yourself ; you
•can alter them now, of course. You have
often done so before."
" But I am deserting such evil courses ;
one must not follow inclination at the sacri-
fice of duty."
« 4 8 JULIET.
She burst into a gay laugh, and clapped
her hands.
"That is a delightful speech, the most
natural thing you have said yet ; for I have a
suspicion you want to go, rather than stay ;
so, by your reasoning, it becomes your duty
to stay. Come now, you will have to yield —
you always have done yet. Where were you
going ? "
" A long way, and go I must, to — to
Ravenna."
"It was not Ravenna," she asserted.
" You said the first name that popped into
your head. You were not going nearly so
far to sketch. Your head-quarters are here,
for Mr. Harvard told me his were, and I
am certain you are working together again.
Where are the Mompessons ? Lai Tatton
wrote me they were going to travel. I
wonder you are not altogether, they, and
Miss Laybourne, and the Quins."
" Do you?" he said, with a constrained
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS 249
smile. " How long- are you going to
stay ? "
" Oh, I am at Thirza's orders. It suits
me very well. Don't you think I am looking
well ? come, you haven't said one pretty thing
yet, and you used to be so clever, full of them."
" You are looking so well, that you take
my breath away. I never thought "
11 That you would have seen me again,"
she finished, laughing, as he stopped abruptly.
44 Ah, you have been very cruel, very heart-
less, my death might have been at your door.
I was very ill, after you left me that miser-
able day in Rome. You went on the wrong
tack, Oliver — you did indeed; things had
gone too far for you to leave me without
anything final, or definite. You might feel
that your position was not yet good enough,
or your means adequate, but I should have
been satisfied to know I had only to wait ;
waiting is nothing, it is suspense that kills
one. And I have my own fortune, don't you
250 JULIET.
know ? my father left us all alike, and it will
be delightful to share it. If you had spoken
then, I would have told you, but you did not
give me a chance. I was simply over-
whelmed when I heard you were going. Of
course, poor dear, it was bad for you, but not
nearly so bad as for me ; the man goes away
to work, and leaves the woman to suffer.
You carried your sense of honour too far, you
did indeed."
Had he carried his sense of honour too
far ? Had he wished all the while to be
en^acred to Evelvn ; and denied himselt ?
Had he not cared for Juliet ? Was there a
Juliet Laybourne in the world ? Had he
proposed to Evelyn ? Was she to be his
wife ? Was he not very happy, quite satis-
fied ? How much that she had said, was
true, how much false ; and if it were all false,
as he half suspected, did she think it was
true ? did she believe in her own words, or was
she acting a part, and cajoling him ? He
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS 251
was certain of nothing. As she spoke, he
leant forward, with down-bent head, alter-
nately going hot and cold, shuddering and
shrinking, bewildered and puzzled. She
credited him with fine motives, which self-
love forbad him to deny, even if he could
have been certain it must be denied. But this
he w r as not. He thought once of asking,
" Have I proposed to you ? ' but that w r ould
be too simple, too dependent. He did not
think he had " spoken " — as she said, even
now. But if he had not, what did it matter ?
She had, and that seemed to suffice. How
in the world was he to explain, and correct
her false impressions, and withdraw himself ?
She was alike impervious to insinuations, cold-
ness, and honesty. He flattered himself he
had been both cold and honest, ignoring the
fact that he had simply been cowed.
" I must be going," he said, suddenly
starting up, stretching himself, and carefully
smoothing his short pilot jacket, without
252 JULIET.
looking at her. " I have an engagement in
half an hour, I am certain," he added doubt-
fully, pulling out his watch.
" Your engagement must go, then, you
now have a better one ; I am not tired of
you," she said lightly. " Sit down again,
Oliver, and tell me more about yourself ; no,
not so close," she said, edging away as he sat
down involuntarily nearer to her ; " I am not
going to have any love-making with that long
face. I am not going to look at you ; you
are quite a repulsive object. You must
brighten up, before I will let you touch
me.
11 Love-making," he repeated, dreamily,
allowing his eyes to rest upon her for a
moment. The previous minute he had had
a wild prompting to sudden flight, to get
away and hide himself where she could never
find him ; but now he was arrested again by
the careless ease of her voice. She had patted
his arm, and looked down persuasively at the
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 253
seat at her side, and he had sunk into it,
certain that she wanted him there ; and now
she was moving away from him, and forbid-
ding him to approach. What further incentive
was necessary to make him feel that he must
be near her, and would touch her ; to urge
him to the vetoed love-making, for sweet per-
versity's sake ? He raised his hat, and
pushed up his hair, looked round wildly, and
heaved a deep sigh, then turned on his seat
to face her, and, propping his elbow on his
knee, supported his head on one hand, while
throwing the other behind her. She was
perfectly aware of this change of attitude,
while seeming unconscious ; also that his eyes
were now fixed on her, looking out strangely
from a pale face, She was looking across
the garden, carelessly thrumming an air upon
each wrist with her crossed hands, knowing
that her very carelessness would now be
irritating, and pique him to go to great
lengths.
254 JULIET.
" So I may not come near you ? " he said,
in a tone that would have trembled had it not
been so low and husky.
"Not while you are in the sulks."
" But I am not in the sulks. This is a
very different tale to our old one in
Rome."
" I am deserting evil courses."
" Oh, are you ? Then I am never to
come near you again ?"
" When you can behave consistently, you
may."
" And what is consistently ? Define it.
How far is my license to go ? '
" That you must decide for yourself.
You know the commc il faut quite as well as
I do."
" I know what you used to give me,
Evelyn, and then we were not even as we
are now ; so I suppose I may now take, as
much at least."
His arm was round her waist, and he was
EVELYN, THE TEMPTRESS. 255
close to her, his head touching her shoulder,
his eyes full of sultry, quivering eager-
ness, that seemed to drink hers dry. But
although worked up to the indulgence of
passion, he was secretly master of the situa-
tion, conscious that he was deceiving her
and enjoying . to the full — fruit which he
knew to be forbidden, and before him for the
last time. She looked back at him, and deep
into his feverish face, then lifted her lips and
let him kiss her, nestling more closely into
his embrace. At that moment a shadow fell
across the grass and rested in front of them.
Ormrod looked up, breathless, pale, and
dreamy ; and saw Juliet.
CHAPTER IX.
NEMESIS.
In an instant Ormrod had flung Evelyn
aside, and started up. He took a hasty
stride forward, then fell back and buried his
face in his hands. While he stood thus,
there was unbroken silence.
Evelyn sat bewildered and outraged,
gazing helplessly at Juliet, who seemed to
her to have sprung from the earth, and was
evidently to Ormrod, as an avenging Spirit.
Anything less avengeful, however, than
Juliet's face and mien, it would have been
impossible to imagine. She was drawn to
her full height, and her face was ashen grey,
NEMESIS. 257
her expression grave to sternness ; but there
was no avenge in these, as also there was no
confusion. Two words were beating in her
head — Deceit, Guilt ; and they were, the one
and only clue, to what was and was to come.
She had heard with her own ears, seen with
her own eyes ; her way was straight and clear
before her. But she waited. She wanted
Ormrod to look at her.
And very soon he did.
Ah, God ! what a Paradise he felt to have
left behind him, when he dared to look at her
again. How safe seemed her tranquillity ;
how satisfying her perfect self-control ; her
lips, how sweet ; her eyes, dilated in a sad-
ness too supreme for reproach, but not yet
too proud for love — how good and gracious !
She wore one of the cool, soft dresses he had
bidden her to wear ; it clung to her in deli-
cate loveliness of tint and texture. He could
smell the heliotrope at her throat. Her
head, with its dark hair; was shadowed by
vol. in. 17
25 8 JULIET.
the open parasol that rested on her shoulder.
Nothing about her moved, she was still as a
picture ; beautiful, refined, calm, even now,
when she was tortured, her heart wrung with
anguish, the fairness of her life sullied and
ruffled. He gazed at her in an agony, his
face drawn and haggard ; and involuntarily
held out his hands. The whole of him was
supplicating and imploring, penitent and
remorseful.
" Speak, Juliet," he said at last, unable to
bear the silence any longer.
" Oh, Noll ! " she said ; and he saw that
she shuddered.
Evelyn started. Here was a name for
him she had never heard — a more familiar
name than Oliver. What were these two to
each other, or, rather, what had they been ;
for that, they would never be again ? She
stood between them, and she knew that
Juliet, least of all, would overlook the
fact.
NEMESIS. 259
" What do vou mean ? " she said ; " I
am "
Ormrod turned at the sound of her voice,
and swore at her.
She shrank back, appalled, cowering be-
fore his look. It was a threatening scowl,
and his face was livid and distorted. It
flashed upon her that there was no rage in
his heart, except against her ; the rest was
love, burning, passionate, and adoring love,
such as he never had given or would give
her. Was she then to lose him, after
all?
" Juliet, forgive me ! " he said.
" I cannot."
" I swear before Heaven, I never will
again yield to temptation."
" I never can forget it."
" If only you would forgive — I would
respect the unforgetfulness, I would not
expect otherwise."
" I never could try to trust you
26o JULIET.
again as I have tried," she said, with pathetic
emphasis.
"Where were you going ? Let me go
with you a little way," he said, eagerly.
" I was going to Quesia Valley, there
is a short cut ; but I have no need to go
now."
"No need to go now! Juliet, there is
more need than ever, that you should go.
I must explain, I will tell you everything. I
have been tempted and I have fallen, but it
is not that I don't love you. I love you to
distraction, as I shall never, could never, love
any one but you. My darling, you must
believe I could not do without you, I must
have you. It maddens me to see you stand-
ing there with that stricken look, and to
know I have brought it to your dear face
by my cowardice and cupidity. Juliet, you
must, you shall forgive me ; yes, by heaven,
you shall ! Come away with me, where we
can talk."
NEMESIS. 261
He strode forward and would have seized
her hands, but she fell back with a gesture
that forbade it.
" It would be of no use my going," she
said, incoherently ; " don't ask it of me. I
could not endure it. Nothing is left for me
but to leave you and never to see you
again "
" Never to see me again ! ' he re-
peated, horror-struck. The thought was
bewildering, unsupportable. Had it in-
deed come to this ? He gazed at her
blankly.
" That cannot be/' he said. " I will never
cease to prove to you, that you are the one
woman I will have for my wife. Ah ! why
did you come this way ? I was going to
Ouesia Valley, but I knew of no short cut.
I was going to you, and then would have
got away, out of reach of temptation and
danger."
" Temptation, danger f Then you knew
262 JULIET.
Miss Dalyrymple was here; that was your
reason for the sudden thought ? ' she said,
quickly.
His eyes fell. He had taken a false
step. She had fathomed the whole arrange-
ment, and was realizing to the full, his
duplicity.
" I saw her here yesterday, in these
gardens, when you and I were together,"
he stammered, for once taking refuse in the
truth.
"And you were frightened of her, afraid,
from what had passed before, that she would
again expect your advances and attentions ?
Well, now you have made them, it seems.
Yott are not now, even what you were then
— that is, in Rome. What are you now ?
Evelyn, tell me," and she went up to Evelyn
and, involuntarily, in her terrible earnestness*
shook her.
Evelyn was sobbing, her face hidden in
her handkerchief.
NEMESIS. 263
" He has deceived me too," she said.
11 Where is he staying ? "
" Here, at Hotel F . We all are."
11 He is a wretch," she said, with a cry of
smothered rage and passion. " So he is
engaged to you, Juliet, after all. He is
cruel, base "
" He is not engaged to me," Juliet said,,
firmly.
" Do you mean that you no longer love
me ? " Ormrod demanded.
" I no longer love you," she said, con-
fronting him with a set face utterly devoid of
expression.
" But you shall again, sooner or later ; 1
swear it."
"Never!" she exclaimed, forcing full
energy of scorn and determination into her
low voice.
"Juliet, listen to reason!' he implored,
comino- up to her and throwing into his bear-
ing and glance all the persuasion of which he
264 JULIET.
was capable. " If only you would come with
me into the wood. We must be alone. I
can't talk here before her, but there
" I should not think of going anywhere
with you, where there was not a witness,"
she interrupted, with bitter contempt. He
laughed shortly, in the nervousness of sheer
bravado. The truth, the utter hopelessness
of the situation, he would not accept. She
might scathe him, scorn him, deny him, but
it only all goaded him to more desperate and
stubborn resistance. Never in his life had
he felt as he felt now. The passion that
had overwhelmed him in Dudtord Lane, at
Coombe, and only yesterday in these same
gardens, was "as moonlight unto sunlight'
compared with the wild, fierce longing that
shook him now, when each moment its satis-
faction was withdrawing further from his
eager clutch. He laboured under the in-
fatuated idea that she would yield, if only he
could have a fair chance, get her alone, clasp
NEMESIS. 265
her in his arms once more, rain kisses again,
as yesterday he had had the right to do, on
brow and lips and hair. It was impossible
for him to believe that now she would have
been like a statue in his clasp ; cold, stiff,
unyielding, with no more sign of life about
her than perhaps a shiver ; no tremble, no
intoxication of happiness, no glorified rapt
face, raising itself shyly to his. But for all
his unbelief and defiance and desperation,
this was the truth, and he had lost all he had
so hardly won, by one moment of detestable
weakness.
She was coming to him now with her
hand held out.
" I am going. Good-bye," she said, look-
ing her last at him from those calm eyes that
seemed to gaze through and beyond him, into
the vacancy of a hopeless future. Where
had the colour and the light and the joy of
her face gone ? Only yesterday she had
lived and breathed ; to-day, her face was
266 JULIET.
dead, set and ashen, blank as though it did
not even hide suffering. Yet he knew she
suffered, that her anguish was torturing her,
gnawing at her heart-strings, devouring her,
body and soul. She had not even shed a
tear, her eyes burnt and glittered.
" I have not lost you," he said, bending
over her and enfolding her hands* in both his,
with a grasp that was agonizing.
"Good-bye," she repeated.
11 I will go with you."
" No."
" I shall come, then."
She did not answer. He carried her
hand to his lips. She was perfectly passive,
and seemed scarcely conscious of the pas-
sionate kisses that he was pressing on to it.
When at last he dropped it, she turned and.
walking slowly, disappeared in a few moments
anions the trees. He stood watching; her
with his arms folded, assuring himself it was
only a matter of waiting ; in months or years
NEMESIS. 267
he would win her yet, and then — keep her.
He did not give a thought to Evelyn, sitting
behind him in silent fury of hatred and
jealousy ; and she did not attempt to detain
him, when he suddenly wheeled round and,
without glancing at her, brushed past her
and plunged into the wood.
Meanwhile Juliet had reached the hotel.
Instinct took her there, for she had no con-
sciousness of where she was going. Two or
three people met her, and turned to stare
after they had passed her ; the look on her
face, the rigidity of her tall figure, could not
but convey the impression of some terrible
blow, some shock that had half paralyzed her,
soul and body. It can scarcely be said that
she had any feeling. She walked like a
somnambulist, and was benumbed. Every-
thing that had happened was clear in her
own mind — from the frightful mortal coldness
that had seized her when in crossing the
268 JULIET.
grass, with light heart and light steps, she
looked up suddenly, and saw the two sitting
on the bench just before her, and heard the
significant words that were sealed by the
still more significant kiss ; to the last moment
before she turned away from him for ever.
Her one fixed idea throughout it all, had
been to make him feel that it was final. No
importunity could affect her now, she would
never yield again to any vehement pleading
or appeal, her heart was steeled against him ;
only, if she were still to see or hear him, she
thought her heart would break. She won-
dered she did not hate him, she wished she
could ; but it was not in her that love could
so soon curdle into hatred, and the wish was
vain, for it was not wounded pride that she
had to battle against, but wounded love and
faith and trust. She knew she must get
away from here, from all association with
him, from the possibility of meeting or even
hearing of him ; he must be shut out of her
NEMESIS. 269
life, and that at once ; and actuated by this
one idea she went in and upstairs, and threw
open the door of their private sitting-room,
with the intention of seeing Mrs. Quin, and
arranging for her journey home.
But on the threshold of the room she
suddenly stopped, confounded by the many
besides Mrs. Quin, who were there. She had
forgotten that Isabel and her husband had
arrived that mornino- that she herself had
helped to break the news to them, and had
been touched to tears by Isabel's sweet
courage and the calm strength which she
had not only shown as her own, but had been
able to infuse into her husband, for whom
the blow was far greater — and now there were
others, whom at first she did not recognize.
To her dazed eyes, the room simply
seemed full of little knots of people, and
at the sound of the opening door, they all
turned and looked at her. Then there was
a hasty exclamation, half-suppressed, and
2-jo JULIET.
some one came forward and put her hand on
his arm.
" Come and sit down," he said, bending
solicitously ; " you are not well What is the
matter ? "
"The matter!" another voice, rough and
loud, echoed ; and at the sound of it she
awoke, a gleam of recognition lit up her
eyes, and she stretched out her hands. Brun-
skill stood aside, and Doctor Thorns in a
moment had seized her hands, and was draw-
ing her to a chair.
" No, no, not here," she said, struggling.
"But I want you. It is you I wanted. Come
with me. I must tell you — something — ah !
something terrible."
She was standing and leaning towards
him, her face full of earnestness, pale and
grief-stricken and amazed, her lips quivering,
her eyes dilating to a blinding rush of tears.
They all stood breathless, not only seeing
but feeling, at once her beauty and her sor-
NEMESIS. 271
row. Brunskill alone turned away. Doctor
Thorns, without a moment's hesitation,
turned round with her, pulled the door wide
open again, then closed it as they found
themselves in the corridor ; and followed her
to her own room.
When they were alone together, Juliet in
a few rapid words told him all, never taking
her eyes from his face, and watching its
varying expression with keenest anxiety, her
voice low and gasping, her mouth trembling,
then again settling into resolute control. At
the end she suddenlv withdrew from him,
standing a few paces away ; and her eyes
dropped, her clasped hands twisted and un-
twisted themselves nervously.
He had not spoken, or made a single
gesture of emotion.
She had not the least clue to what was
in his mind ; but she plunged on recklessly,
into the one great point that had arrested
her bewildered agonized thought, from the
272 JULIET.
moment of recognizing him, and was like a
straw to a drowning man.
" If you will ask me now to marry you,
I will," she said.
-Juliet!"
The loudness of his voice startled her, as
though she had been struck. She looked
up, meeting a glance into which was crowded
astonishment, indignation, and anger, with
fierce desire and love shining through and
above, and struggling to absorb them all.
The blood rushed to her face. She felt that
she had outraged the holiest feeling of his
life; with irreverent touch, profaning what
was too sacred for the light of day. Her
heart stood still, then beat to suffocation, as
for one moment, she thought he was turning
his back upon her, and leaving her. She
had risked all. There was no withdrawing.
On the contrary, she must go on. With his
finders touching the door-handle, he paused,
hesitated ; and she sprang forward, seizing
NEMESIS. 273
what would otherwise have been a last
moment.
"Forgive me," she exclaimed; "I am
wicked, I have thought only of myself; but
you were like a god-send."
At the first word he had turned again
and faced her.
" Tell me truly why you said that," he
said.
" I want to go away."
" You want to go away with me, you and
I alone together ? "
"Alone together."
" And could you bear it ? "
" I could, if you could, if you would," she
said, slowly.
He was silent, but swung his arms oddly,
and folded them, as though tempted to pos-
sessive measures, which, as yet, he was
determined to withstand.
" I don't suppose you would ever be
happy," he said, in a dry hard tone.
vol. in. 18
274 JULIET.
. She did not answer.
" Where should we have to live ? " he
asked.
" At Coombe," she said, eagerly.
" We could travel, move about "
" No, Coombe, the Rectory.*'
" You would soon tire of the quiet and
monotony."
" No. I want it."
" You think so now, when you want it to
heal a broken heart."
Juliet shivered, and turned deathly pale.
For a moment, he thought he had defeated
himself, and the game was lost. Then, with
an effort, whose greatness not even his love
could fathom, she looked up at him, and he
saw a light in her eyes, tenderer than they
had ever shed on him before.
" If my heart were broken, nothing would
matter to me any more ; but this matters,"
she said, timidly.
" It would have to be done at once."
NEMESIS. 275
" What ? "
" Sit down, and keep still," he said,
huskily ; and when she had obeyed him, he
went to the window, and stood some time.
She naturally thought he was looking out.
But he was not. His eyes were closed.
The moment he opened them, he came back
to her, and took her hand.
"Juliet," he said, " 1 trust you. Will you
trust me with your happiness for Time, and,
through God, for Eternity ? "
His calmness destroyed hers. She burst
into tears.
" You are too good to me already," she
said.
He bent down, touched her hair with his
lips, then left her alone.
CHAPTER X.
" FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL."
Before night, the whole party knew that
Doctor Thorns was going to marry Juliet as
soon as possible. He told Brunskill, taking
him fully into confidence, and asking him to
tell the others as much as was necessary.
This Brunskill did, and answered the
volley of questions discharged at him, to the
best of his ability. Such an unexpected
event occurring in their midst, and yet not
immediately personal, was hailed by all as a
blessed relief to the strain imposed upon
themselves by unexpected circumstances,
and went further than anything else could
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL? 277
have done to dissipate their constraint with
Brunskill. There was only one question
which he could not answer, that of Ormrod's
present whereabouts. Doctor Thoms had
not seemed to consider this a matter of any
moment. When all was explained, and they
had realized and accepted the bouleversevzent,
discussion ran hi^h. Mrs. Ouin was de-
lighted to have some one to condemn openly,
as a vent for personal discomfited spleen,
and arrayed herself ostentatiously against
Juliet. The others, without exception, took
her part, declaring her to be fully justified,
not only in giving up Ormrod, but in at
once marrying Doctor Thoms. It would
ensure her against Ormrod's future advances,
and give her the necessary impetus to forget
him, at the same time as the Doctor's gene-
rosity, would enforce love and trust where
both would be worthily bestowed. But
there was naturally, in the whole affair, much
food for speculation and perplexity. What
278 JULIET.
had happened must have been so unforeseen
by all those most closely concerned. Lily
knew that Juliet had gone out in the morning
to meet Ormrod in Ouesia Valley ; Ouin
**-*• j * *****
testified that she had spoken of him during
breakfast, with affectionate confidence ; Henry
Mompesson swore she was no jilt, though
that was what it looked, on the face of it.
Who was the woman with whom she had
caught him ? This was precisely what Brun-
skill did not know. But Isabel leapt to the
just conclusion. She had met Mrs. St. Paul in
the corridor, and stayed chatting, and during
that chat it had transpired that Evelyn was
travelling with her. She and Brunskill thus
were the least confused ; Brunskill, because
he knew other things of Ormrod, and had
only discovered him at his old courses, and
Isabel, because she remembered the gossip
that had reached her, months previously.
Juliet did not appear again that day,
but Doctor Thorns dined with them. He
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL." 279
was pale, but otherwise looked as usual.
Congratulation was avoided, it being impos-
sible to treat in the ordinary way, extraor-
dinary circumstances which were impressing
them all more deeply each moment in which
they noted his calm ; unpreoccupied ease.
Had they not known him so well, they would
have set him down as a phlegmatic and
matter-of-fact wooer, in whom success stirred
no emotion, and anticipation no pulsing thrill
of impatience. But they all knew him, and
surrounded his Present with a halo of ro-
mance, imagining what must have been his
patience and self-abnegation and steadfast
watchful devotion, that he could thus have
been content to wait, putting self aside, with
circling thought ever encompassing her ; and
at last, in the supreme moment of her agony
and grief and bewilderment, placing himself
before her as a refuge and a safeguard, and
rising to the vast emergency from which
another man would have turned and shrunk
280 JULIET.
away, fearful of compromising himself — even
allowing cowardice to canker love, and well-
ni^h revolting from a sorrow in which he
had no part.
After dinner, the Doctor went up to
Isabel, who was sitting in the window, talk-
ing to Brunskill.
" I have a favour to ask," he said. " I
wouldn't, if you were not one of the best
and sweetest women I know. Don't to
o
away, Mompesson," he added, as Brunskill
moved. " Stay and chat with me, while Mrs.
Harry does my behest. There is a lonely
woman not far away, Bel. Be her good
Samaritan, and give my true love to her.
Will you ? "
Isabel rose at once, with a quick nod
and smile ; and they watched her cross the
room. Her husband had come forward to
open the door, and, as she passed him. a
glance was exchanged between them that
both lookers-on, in their own fulfilment o{
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL." 281
sacred hope, felt to hold a touch of the
divine. Doctor Thorns turned to Bruns-
kill, with a scrutinizing glance, that brought
the tell-tale colour with a rush to his
face.
" Ah ! ' he said, with a pathetic ring of
satisfaction in his voice, " how certain it is,
that everything comes to him who knows
how to wait ! We shall be a quartett ot
neighbours soon."
When Isabel entered Juliet's room, she
found her kneeling on the floor, before a
large packing-case ; and almost before Juliet
was conscious of her presence she had
reached her, and, stooping, kissed her
silently. The loving action, the contact
with true womanliness, and that dependent
craving for sympathy, which, in such crises
of a life, is uncontrollable, brought Juliet
instantly to her feet, and made her fling her
arms round Isabel's neck the more vehe-
mently, from the sudden sense that this was
282 JULIET.
what she had been loncrino- for. Isabel
stood and grasped her, returning her hys-
terical kisses, conscious that she wished to
hide her face until she could control its ex-
pression and trust her voice ; and glad, on
her own part, to gain time to realize this
new Juliet, who was trembling and quivering
under loss of self-possession and a confusion
of a^onizinof self-consciousness and self-dis-
trust and dependency.
"What do you think?' Juliet asked,
withdrawing suddenly from the protective
embrace, and crazing a t ] ler w ith searching,
limpid eyes.
" I think it is no longer only a chance
that you will be happy," said Isabel, ear-
nestly.
" Ah ! don't you, too, think of me alone —
think of him. He thinks only of me," she
said, clasping her hands.
" It is one and the same thinsf. dear."
" Then he is not debasing himself by
u FORTUXE, TURN THY WHEEL" 28.
taking me now, at last, after all ? He must
not debase himself. Some might call me a
jilt. What other man would take me now ?
— only half of me, it would seem to them.
I have been thinking about it all ; I have
even wondered if it were possible that it
is out of pity, and because he loved me
once ; and that misled me, and 1 presumed
upon it? And he may not have loved me
now, but forced himself to — to keep it up,
when he saw "
"He would tell you — assure you — that
he loved you."
" To-day he said, ' / trust you ; ' but
there was so much more than "
She stopped, conscious of her incoherency
and vital anxiety.
" Then the other, lay beneath that, as a
matter of course," said Isabel, firmly. " Would
he have cared to think of trusting a woman
at such a crisis if it had not to imply every-
thing ? Don't worry, dear. He sent me
284 JULIET.
here with his true love. Is not that suf-
ficient ? "
" His true love," Juliet repeated, in a low-
tone of lingering emphasis. She was greatly
excited, and had never in her life looked
more beautiful. She was no longer pale and
calm, but flushed and restless ; her eyes were
bright, and full of strange shifting lights,
which misgiving scarcely seemed to quench
into momentary shadow. She was looking
at Isabel without seeing her, and had thrown
her arms up and clasped her hands on her
hair, in a feverish effort at self-control, that
seemed almost delirious. In this way she
walked to and fro for some minutes, Isabel
watching her, and wondering whether her
thoughts ran in the groove of the Past more
than that of the Present — wondering, indeed,
if there were wisdom and safety in the course
events had taken, or whether misery were
beckoning these two, in seductive guise, to
inevitable shipwreck. Put her doubts were
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL." 285
quickly set at rest. Juliet suddenly dropped
her arms, stood motionless, and then went
up to her toilette-table. An open letter lay
there, and this she took up and gave to
Isabel, without embarrassment or flinching-.
" Read it," she said, more quietly. " It
is from Mr. Ormrod."
Isabel read. It was an impassioned
appeal for forgiveness, with raving assur-
ances of undying affection, an imploring de-
mand to be allowed to see her, the vehement
declaration that he must and would see her,
cutting denunciation of Evelyn, and a wild
assertion that he would yet conquer her, if
only by a pertinacious dogging of her steps
that should prove that she was his one end
and aim in existence. She contrasted it all
mentally with Doctor Thorns' patient self-
control and ultimatum of fine calm, and in
concluding, what in her own mind she stio--
matized as melodramatic, she looked up,
and met Juliet's searching gaze fixed upon
286 JULIET.
her, with an intensity which she recognized
at once, as coming more from the mind than
the heart.
"It is all very natural," she said. ''Of
course, he does not for a moment think that
the great obstacle to it all, is the simple fact
that you no longer care to be the end and
aim of his existence. That fact simplifies
everything for you ; but it complicates it for
him."
11 Yes ; but onlv this morning I cared to
be that, above all earthly things. And I am
not a changeable woman. ,:
" There is sometimes a wider difference
than this, between morning and night."
" I am thankful it was not death. Death
would not have done this for me or for
Humphrey — yes, for Humphrey," she re-
peated. Then, going close to Isabel, she
put her hands on her shoulders and looked
into her face. " Am I unwomanly ? ' she
asked, almost in a whisper.
''FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL:' 287
But it was impossible for Isabel to follow
all the intricate workings of a mind always
acutely sensitive to moral influences, and for
the first time distrustful of itself and groping
after renewed confidence, as yet unconscious
that it could only now come through her
husband's guidance and control. She could,
however, act out of her own code of simple
frank womanliness, and with a comforting-
caressing gesture, she drew Juliet to her,
and kissed her again, with tears in her eyes
and a tremble of her lips.
" Dearest," she said, " I think God Him-
self has interposed for your happiness. Be
still, and be thankful."
" I am! I am!" Juliet rejoined, as simply.
<r I am longing for Coombe — for the Rectory.
I have determined many things. He shall
be very happy. It shall be a true home."
" And you ?' Isabel said, affectionately.
" I shall too ; I cannot but be. I shall
never forget what he was to me this morn-
288 JULIET.
ing ; but it shall not be gratitude only. He
is too good. Oh ! I could never tell you the
half of what he has been to me ! Now go,
Bel. I want you to give him this letter, for
him to answer it as he thinks best, and then
to burn it. As he thinks best" she repeated,
dreamily. " I can trust his judgment before
my own, you see ; yes, fully. And, Bel,
give him my faithful remembrances. Good
night ! "
Left to herself, and feeling strengthened
and comforted, as though in working off
some of her overwhelming excitement, she
had gathered the support of confidence and
exaltation, Juliet found that she could endure
to be quiet, and to sit down and think. For
the last few hours she had done nothing but
move restlessly about, pacing up and down
the room, with her hands clasped behind her
and shining eyes gazing into vacancy. After
Doctor Thorns left her she had sobbed un-
controllably for a long time, abandoning her-
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL." 289
self to the wonderful min^lin^ of grief and
gratitude, which had swept into her soul at
full flood, and borne everything down before
it. She had not attempted to persuade her-
self that she loved Doctor Thorns, but she
had realized with astonishment that she had
no love left for Ormrod. Her whole nature
revolted against the part he had played ; she
saw nothing but the mental picture of the
two, seated close together on the seat in the
shade of the chestnut wood, Evelyn looking
up at him, he looking down at her, as their
lips met in the kiss which had well-nigh
turned her to stone where she stood ; she
heard nothing but his traitorous words, sug-
gestive even of more treachery than met the
ear and the eye. These haunted herj but
how much more, the simple generosity of
Humphrey Thorns, when once she began to
force that picture into the background, and
resolve, with all the strength of will at her
command, to live it down and forget it, and
vol. in. 19
2 9 o JULIET.
rise from her "dead self to better things."
The more she thought, the more did his
generosity assume its just proportions and
value. Her one idea in making the propo-
sition she had so recklessly made, had been
that he would take her away, that she would
get away, have some one to rely upon, and
be saved the distress and hardening anguish
of eoine home to Marshlands with her
hipped and ruined life. Had he taken her
dispassionately at her word, possessed her
without a moment's hesitation, and acquiesced
gratefully in whatever she wished, there
would have been slight chance that he would
ever have eained her heart's treasure. Their
marriage would have been to her, a mere
refuge ; to him, a harassing compensation ;
she would have accepted his attentions as a
matter of course, scarcely rising to the point
of appreciating them ; and his unvarying
tender solicitude, would have gnawed at his
own vitals, for want of reciprocation. Hut
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL." 291
the tone in which he had uttered her name
before turning from her, had discovered a
new world to her, a world whose infinite, far-
reaching possibilities, had been revealed as
by a lightning flash, and made her stretch
forth her hands to seize it, as the one point
worth gaining, for foot-hold and hope in
chaos. She knew now, that only had he
eluded her detaining grasp and disappeared
from her horizon, would true desolation have
overtaken her. He did not know the frenzy
of despair and prayer, that had clutched her
during the long moment of his hesitation ;
still less could he yet realize the devotion
and high endeavour and unswerving reliance,
which she would pour into his life, sustained
by the exalting gratitude that would gene-
rate love and illumine their joint lives into
perfect harmony.
She spent most of the night in writing
letters ; among others a long one to her
mother, and one to Miss Gliddon. A bundle
292 JULIET.
of ■ Ormrod's letters, she burnt without re-
reading them ; and made up a packet of her
ring: and other things he had driven her.
Almost at daybreak, she drew up the blind,
and kneeling in the window, with her face
upturned to the star-lit sky, gave herself up to
a communion that was not so much of prayer,
as of self-examination and discipline. When
she rose again, cramped and chill in body,
but calm mentally, she went to bed, and
slept a dreamless sleep.
The ensuing days passed quickly and
quietly. Doctor Thorns had much to arrange,
and was constantly busy with letters and
telegrams. Nothing happened beyond their
lono- talks together, and nothing was heard
of Ormrod. The Dalyrymples left in a
hurry, and Harvard alone knew that they
were again in the same town as Ormrod.
He had had a wild letter from Ormrod
intended to point to suicide, but, to the more
balanced judgment of his friend, pointing
''FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL." 293
to the calmer possibility of consolation in
matrimony. In fact, there was no doubt
that Evelyn would run her prey to earth
before long, and that he would have to yield
to the meshes he had helped to weave. Flat-
tery, cajolement, persuasion, persistency, were
tools which Evelyn would not hesitate to
wield ; besides which, his was just the base
nature to think he should regain lost dignity
and self-respect, by proving to the world that
if one woman would not have him, another
would. In the meantime it pleased him to
curse himself, and dub himself broken-
hearted, to rave of what his infatuation had
lost, to write melodramatic answers to
Doctor Thorns' trite announcement of his
eneaeement — answers which he dared to
send, as little as he dared again to write to
Juliet; and to brood despairingly over the
approaching wedding-day.
At last that day dawned. Quin went
with Juliet to the Consulate, the others were
294 JULIET.
already there. She entered the room with a
composure, in which none but the closest
observer could detect anything different to
her usual composure ; and of these close
observers, there w r ere only two. Brunskill,
remembering her at Moorhead a year ago, at
once perceived that she had found her olive-
branch ; Doctor Thorns felt, rather than saw,
that she had found her happiness.
She wore the dress she had worn when
Doctor Thorns found her in the moonlit
glade at Coombe. This she did designedly,
to please him, for he had talked of it since.
It was a pale, ivory-tinted gown, made simply ;
and there was heliotrope mingled with the
bridal flowers at her throat and in her hand.
As she advanced, the perfume seemed to
scent the whole room. She came forward with
Ouin, her tall figure slightly bent and moving
with the slow swimming motion peculiar to
her.
Her eyes were downcast, but every
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEELS 295
one could see her face, and its expression
of sweet steadfastness.
When they reached the group gathered
round the table, she looked up suddenly,
and there was that, in the deep and limpid
calm of her dark eyes, as they rested with
a grave smile of recognition on one after
another, that made them realize once more,
that she was a beautiful woman, who must
command admiration everywhere. Nothing
could have suited her better than the subtle
colour of this gown, with its touches of
flowers and lace. It made her into a pic-
ture, enhancing the olive of her skin, and
the flush on either cheek, and the shine of
her eyes. They all shook hands with her
silently ; Isabel kissing her. Lily was in
white, and carried a basket of oranee
blossoms. Juliet did not know until weeks
afterwards, that she had acted as her brides-
maid, for although she looked at them, she
scarcely saw them. It was like a dream,
296 * JULIET.
the only thing of which she was distinctly
conscious, being the grasp of her hand by
Doctor Thorns, and his eyes steadfastly
fixed on hers, and seeming to pierce into her
very soul.
Afterwards there was a momentary buzz
of congratulation, she heard herself addressed
by a new name, a cloak was thrown round
her ; and, still held by that firm grasp, she
went downstairs, and entered the carriage.
They returned to the hotel, then drove to
the station, and in half an hour were on
the way to Turin. She was alone with her
husband.
As yet, he had scarcely spoken to her,
but his presence seemed to encompass her.
She had been feeling, with a curious mixture
of content and amazement, that she was, for
the first time in her life, a passive agent ;
doubt, fear, misgiving, independency, all
seemed to have merged into the sense, so
comforting and natural to a woman's heart,
"FORTUNE, TURN THY WHEEL." 297
that she was looked after, thought of, and
cared for. Undoubtedly she had yielded
herself up to a stronger than she, and was
now to find more safety in following, than
in leading. But it was impossible that she
should realize all yet ; or drift at once into
the new current, that was bearing her wholly
away from the old moorings. She was,
however, content to wait, to rest, and to rely,
where she knew instinctively, that reliance
was safe ; and when it struck her now, dawn-
ing with a spring-like flush of fresh life,
that he wanted her to look at him, to
meet his eyes fully and freely, and to give
some sign, some little sign, of at least
content, she found the power was at her
command.
That still sweet glance of hers, with its
fathomable depth of shyness and trust,
thrilled him to his heart's core. He leant
forward, drew her cloak more closely round
her, then sought her hand and held it.
298 JULIET.
But it seemed to both of them that they
could not talk. There are times in our
lives, when silence is more eloquent than
speech.
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